Welcome back, book lovers! This week's Jen's Jewels features the delightful Bonnie Kistler, whose latest thriller SHELL GAMES had me turning pages long past my bedtime. When a glamorous Florida real estate mogul's surprise engagement leads to shocking accusations on her wedding night, her daughter Julie must navigate a maze of family secrets and mounting suspicions. As Bonnie and I chatted about mother-daughter relationships, climate change, and the art of keeping readers guessing, I discovered just how many fascinating layers she wove into this sun-soaked psychological thriller. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and join us as we dig into the story behind SHELL GAMES – I promise you won't want to miss this conversation!
Jennifer Vido: SHELL GAMES is a captivating psychological thriller with complex family dynamics. What inspired you to write a story about a mother-daughter relationship twisted by deception and doubt?
Bonnie Kistler: It was a circuitous route. I first had the idea of a woman on her wedding night who claims that her husband has just confessed to a notorious unsolved crime––the Tylenol Murders. He denies that he either did it or confessed to it, and the authorities quickly absolve him, which makes the woman believe he’s gaslighting her.
The trouble with this idea was that the Tylenol Murders took place in 1982, and I didn’t want to write a period piece. I enjoy writing contemporary fiction because gives me room to work in some current issues. But if I moved the action to now, the bride would have to be a senior citizen! There’s a truism in commercial publishing that no one wants to read about women over 40. I don’t actually believe that, but I started to think about telling the story through the eyes of a younger character. That’s when I hit on the idea of the bride’s daughter, who doesn’t know what to believe.
Jen: Julie’s relationship with her mother, Kate, is filled with admiration yet complicated by Kate’s powerful presence. How did you approach developing this intense and layered mother-daughter bond?
Bonnie: A lot of fiction deals with the plight of the sons of rich and powerful fathers. It’s rare to see this dynamic in the mother-daughter relationship, so it was both a treat and a challenge for me to go there. Kate is brilliant and glamorous and casts such a big shadow that Julie seems meek and mousy in comparison. Kate can’t help feeling disappointed in her daughter, and Julie can’t help resenting her mother’s domineering ways. Still, they love each other. Kate’s first husband died in tragic circumstances, which resulted in a close bond between mother and daughter despite their differences.
Jen: Kate is a compelling character—a self-made real estate mogul and force in Florida politics. How did you craft her personality, and were there any real-life figures who inspired her character?
Bonnie: Truly none, and that was part of the challenge. Most of the real-life female titans of industry rose in female-coded industries, like cosmetics or fashion. Most female billionaires inherited their fortunes from fathers or husbands. But Kate is entirely self-made and made her fortune in the “man’s world” of real estate development. I felt like I was creating a new model, which gave me a lot of freedom to deviate from other types. One way I did that was to give Kate a backbone of steel but a heart of mush when it comes to her reawakened love for Charlie, her long-lost high school sweetheart.
Jen: The mystery surrounding Charlie’s intentions with Kate is intriguing. Did you have his true motives planned from the beginning, or did they evolve as you wrote the story?
Bonnie: I knew the truth all along. I only hope my readers don’t!
Jen: Climate change and rapid development are a vivid backdrop for this story. How did those elements come into play, and what role do they play in shaping the tension of Shell Games?
Bonnie: Once I decided on real estate development as Kate’s career, the threat of climate change followed naturally. During the twenty plus years that I’ve been a part-time resident of Florida, the pace of development along both coasts has been staggering, and it’s certainly led to some dire environmental consequences. Add to that the increased hurricane activity resulting from overheated ocean waters. In a very real way, Florida is suffering the effects of global warming before the rest of the world.
I also wanted to highlight the generational divide on attitudes about climate change. Kate dismisses the threat, while Julie does have concerns, which only grow deeper after she comes to know Tad Ainsworth, a climate activist who serves as a lightning rod in the story.
Jen: Julie finds herself questioning her husband, Eric, as much as she questions Charlie. What was it like weaving this web of trust and paranoia within Julie’s marriage?
Bonnie: One of the many stressors in Julie’s life is the fact that her mother and her husband really dislike each other. Eric is a doctor with a God complex, and he can be as domineering as Kate. Julie feels constantly caught between them, and the situation only grows worse after Charlie’s alleged confession. Eric maintains that Kate has dementia, and Kate accuses Eric of conspiring with Charlie to get control of her fortune. Julie doesn’t want to believe her brilliant mother is losing her mind, but she also doesn’t want to believe Eric is plotting against her. But he’s keeping some sort of secret, and she can’t help growing suspicious.
Jen: Gaslighting and manipulation are central themes in Shell Games. What drew you to explore these darker elements of human psychology?
Bonnie: Gaslighting is the ultimate con game. I’m especially intrigued by how much it depends on the balance of power in a relationship. Only someone who clearly has the upper hand could get their victim to doubt their own perception of reality. Julie is a bright young woman, but between her past trauma and her unbalanced relationship with her mother and husband––and another character whom I won’t mention––she’s definitely susceptible to gaslighting.
Jen: With such intense suspense and plot twists, how did you keep track of the story’s many secrets and reveals? Do you have a particular method for mapping out complex storylines like this?
Bonnie: I don’t. You know the old dichotomy between plotters and pantsers? Some writers plot out every detail before they begin to write, while others fly by the seat of their pants? Well, I’m not a plotter, but I’m not as haphazard as a pantser either. In Shell Games, I always knew where I wanted to end up. I just didn’t know exactly how I was going to get there.
But I like working this way. If I can surprise myself with new ideas along the way, I don’t get bored with the material. And I hope I can surprise my readers, too.
Jen: The setting of Florida—glamorous yet precarious—adds a unique tension to the novel. How did you decide on this location, and what does it mean to you in the context of the story?
Bonnie: In recent years Florida has seemed like a flashpoint for everything that’s now happening nationwide. The culture wars, the growing gulf between the haves and the have-nots, and of course climate change. And yet in so many ways it’s still paradise. I love it, but sometimes I hate what’s happening to it. I hoped to capture that dichotomy.
Jen: Ultimately, what do you hope readers will feel or take away after finishing Shell Games?
Bonnie: Julie seems to transform herself over the course of the book from weak and unsure of herself to bold and confident. I hope that readers will see that she always had all of those traits in her mix. She can’t escape who she was, but she’s able to choose who to be in the future.
People can be more than one thing––good and bad, weak and strong, kind and cruel. We all contain multitudes, to borrow a phrase from Walt Whitman. I hope that readers will see those multitudes in other characters as well.
A dazzling thriller about a young woman whose fabulously wealthy mother might be the victim of an elaborate con or might be losing her mind––and the daughter can’t tell where the truth lies.
Julie’s mother Kate is a force of nature––a glamorous woman of seventy, a self-made real estate developer, a grande dame in Florida society, and a power broker in Florida politics. It wasn’t easy for Julie to grow up in the shadow of such a dynamo, but she loves her mother, and she and her husband Eric are thrilled when Kate marries her long-lost high school sweetheart, a salt-of-the-earth man named Charlie.
But their storybook romance ends abruptly. On their wedding night, Kate calls the police in hysterics to report that Charlie just confessed to a notorious unsolved crime from decades before.
Charlie says she imagined it. Eric says that Kate has dementia. And the FBI says that Charlie couldn’t possibly have committed that crime.
Julie doesn’t know what to believe. Is her brilliant mother losing her mind? Or is sweet, lovable Charlie gaslighting Kate to gain control of her fortune?
As Julie tries to navigate through this maze of paranoia and mind games, cracks start to develop in her own marriage as it seems that Eric is keeping secrets . . .
Set against a backdrop of rampant development and devastating climate change, Shell Games is a psychological thriller that will make your head spin and the pages turn as you wonder exactly who is doing what to whom.
Thriller Psychological [Harper Paperbacks, On Sale: November 19, 2024, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780063378964 / eISBN: 9780063378957]
Bonnie Kistler is the author of four acclaimed psychological thrillers: SHELL GAMES, HER, TOO, THE CAGE, and HOUSE ON FIRE. A former Philadelphia trial lawyer, she and her husband now divide their time between Southwest Florida and the mountains of western North Carolina.
Jennifer Vido writes sweet romances set in the Lowcountry, earning acclaim as the award-winning author of the Gull Island series. Her debut novel, "Serendipity by the Sea," secured the prestigious Best First Book award from the New Jersey Romance Writers Golden Leaf Contest. In 2024, Vido's talent garnered further accolades, with Baltimore Magazine readers naming her Best Local Author in their annual Best of Baltimore poll, while the Baltimore Sun acknowledged her with an Honorable Mention in their Best of 2024 Author category. When not writing fiction, she interviews authors for her weekly Jen’s Jewels column, leads water exercise classes, and directs a legal nonprofit. Currently residing in Maryland, she and her husband are proud parents to two grown sons and a rescue dog named Fripp.
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