This week’s Jen’s Jewels column features debut author Sandra Chwialkowska, who shares the inspiration behind her thrilling new release, THE ENDS OF THINGS. Set against the picturesque backdrop of a tropical vacation, the novel weaves suspense with the intricacies of female friendship. Sandra dives into her creative process, the allure of mystery, and how a seemingly perfect getaway can lead to unexpected revelations. With its intriguing plot and relatable characters, this conversation offers a fascinating glimpse into a story that will captivate readers from start to finish. Be sure to check it out and uncover what makes THE ENDS OF THINGS a must-read!
Jennifer Vido: THE ENDS OF THINGS delves into suspense and female friendship. What inspired you to blend these elements into a single narrative?
Sandra Chwialkowska: I love mysteries and suspense stories, so I wanted to write my version of a missing persons investigation. My heroine Laura becomes obsessed with a mysterious woman she meets on vacation, and when that woman disappears, Laura becomes embroiled in the investigation that unfolds. I’m very interested in obsession, specifically female obsession, and I wanted to explore why women sometimes become obsessed with each other. What triggers it? What’s at the root of it? The more I thought about it, the more I realized some of my most intense relationships were friendships from girlhood, and I became excited by the idea of Laura meeting a new friend who triggers those feelings she hasn’t felt since she was a girl. That’s when I knew I wanted to follow Laura on a journey of self-discovery, but with the trappings of a suspenseful mystery.
Jen: The idea of a perfect getaway gone wrong is central to the book. Why did you set this story during a vacation, and how does this setting amplify the suspense?
Sandra: A few years ago, I vacationed with my boyfriend at a couple’s beach resort in the Bahamas, where I observed a woman vacationing alone. I was intrigued to know why she came to a romantic resort by herself, and this mystery gave me the idea for the premise of my novel. I find vacations fascinating because of their intrinsic tension: A vacation unfolds over a compressed period, it’s often expensive, there is a lot of forced togetherness, you need the weather to cooperate, and you want the experience to be restful. That’s a lot of pressure! So, for me, a perfect getaway had all the ingredients to go perfectly, disastrously, wrong.
Jen: Eleuthera’s setting seems idyllic at first. How did you use this paradise to contrast with the novel's darker themes and amplify the suspense?
Sandra: My novel is concerned with expectation vs reality and assumption vs truth, so a luxury beach resort seemed like an ideal setting to explore these themes. Beach resorts are interesting to me because they are inherently contradictory: A resort is made to look like an authentic oasis of unspoiled natural beauty, but of course it’s completely artificial. I visit resorts to live out a fantasy, but after a day or two, my fantasy fizzles, reality is exposed, and as a writer, I’m interested in the friction that results. My novel explores a romantic relationship between Laura and her new boyfriend Dave, and paradise seemed like an ideal setting to test their relationship and to allow for simmering tensions to gradually build to an explosive climax.
Jen: Laura’s journey is one of self-discovery. How did you develop her character, and what role does trust play in her relationships?
Sandra: Laura is a catastrophizer, and at one point the novel references her tendency to only imagine “the ends of things,” which is where the book’s title comes from. I wanted to explore where her inclination to imagine the worst-case scenario originated. Was she born this way, or was she conditioned to live in fear? Catastrophizing is closely linked with distrust, and I wanted to examine how certain traumatic incidents in Laura’s childhood informed her inability to trust people in adulthood. It’s her lack of trust that causes her to inadvertently upend her entire life.
Jen: The mysterious Diana plays a key role in the story. How did you craft her character, and what challenges did you face in keeping her enigmatic?
Sandra: Usually, when I’m crafting a character, I create an in-depth backstory in order to unpack their motivations, but with Diana, it was important that she remain mysterious to Laura for as long as possible, which meant she needed to remain a cypher to me as well. To achieve this, I held back on fleshing out her backstory until I absolutely needed to reveal it in the novel. The challenge was how to write scenes depicting her point of view without revealing why she held a particular opinion. And because Laura makes certain assumptions about Diana, which turn out to be incorrect, it was crucial that all of Diana’s dialogue could be read two ways: Her dialogue needed to support Laura’s theories about why she came to the resort, while simultaneously aligning with the real reason she came.
Jen: The novel suggests impending danger. How did you build tension throughout the story without giving too much away too soon?
Sandra: I give a lot of credit to my spectacular editor, Celia Johnson. Working with her was like taking a masterclass in suspense storytelling. During the editing process, we worked on both a macro and micro level to inject as much suspense as possible without compromising Laura’s musings. On a macro scale, I wanted every chapter to end on a cliffhanger that would compel the reader to turn the page. I also think mysteries work best when the reader experiences an extreme reversal. So, to intensify Laura’s low point at the novel’s climax, I wanted her to have everything she (thought she) wanted at the novel’s outset – dream job, dream boyfriend, storybook vacation. Then, it became a task of chipping away at the fantasy until little fissures led to cracks led to the bottom of her life falling out.
Utilizing setting was another way I built tension. At first, the island seemed passive: the tranquil sea, the scenic cliffs, the cloudless sky. But I gradually made the island more active: the sea became ominous, the cliffs dangerous, the sky portentous of rain. When I ultimately unleashed a tropical storm, the island came alive, a dramatic character in its own right.
On a micro scale, Celia and I looked for organic spots to add clues and misdirects, and on a sentence-to-sentence level, I worked to surgically inject micro beats of Laura’s mounting anxiety, which, collectively, would send the reader’s imagination spinning into possible “what if” scenarios while adding to a mounting sense of dread.
Jen: How does the concept of identity factor into the story, especially in relation to Laura’s perceptions of others and herself?
Sandra: At the outset of the novel, Laura identifies as a high-achieving, people-pleasing, rule-following, Good Girl, but when her worst-case scenario comes true, she spirals into despair. And yet, for someone who has dutifully built a life she thought she was supposed to want, it takes completely obliterating that life to confront her true self and choose a path she actually wants.
Jen: What do you hope readers reflect on after finishing THE ENDS OF THINGS?
Sandra: When I set out to write my novel, I wanted to confront some of my fears about being a woman in the world: Is a woman truly allowed to be alone in the world? If so, why does society cast judgment on a solitary woman? I was raised in a culture that conditioned me to live in fear, that told me I cannot survive alone, that I can only thrive when I’m one half of a couple, and I think part of me wrote this book to challenge that notion. I hope that readers will reflect on their own fears and anxieties and question whether they’re warranted.
Jen: What’s the best way for readers to stay connected with you?
Sandra: I’m on Instagram. Readers can also message me via my website.
Jen: Thank you for the inside peek into your fabulous new release!
Sandra: Thank you for such thoughtful, insightful questions!
A propulsive literary debut, The Ends of Things is both a thought-provoking suspense and a meditation on female friendship and agency—perfect for fans of The White Lotus and authors like Catherine Steadman and Rachel Hawkins.
She thought she had the perfect life … until she met a stranger in paradise.
Laura Phillips always wanted to travel the world but was too afraid to go it alone. So when her new boyfriend, Dave, invites her on a romantic getaway to the remote island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas, she jumps at the chance.
As soon as they arrive at the Pink Sands resort, Laura and Dave are handed cocktails garnished with umbrellas and led to a luxurious suite. It’s a lovers’ paradise. But when they head down to the pristine beach, Laura notices an oddity among the sunbathing couples: a woman vacationing alone. Intrigued, Laura befriends the woman, Diana, and as they spend time together, Laura finds herself telling Diana secrets she’s never shared with anyone.
But when Diana unexpectedly disappears, Laura suddenly realizes how little she knows about this mysterious woman.
The police suspect Diana may be in danger, and soon Laura herself becomes embroiled in the investigation. Her worries swiftly turn into obsession: Who is Diana? Where did she go? Is she dead? Murdered? As Laura races to find out what happened—and prove her own innocence—she quickly realizes that nothing in this sun-soaked paradise is what it seems, and it’s impossible to know who she can trust. What started out as a dream getaway is turning into a terrifying nightmare …
Women's Fiction Psychological | Women's Fiction Friendship [Blackstone Publishing, On Sale: January 14, 2025, Paperback / e-Book , ISBN: 9798874746711 / ]
Sandra Chwialkowska is a television writer and producer who splits her time between Los Angeles and Toronto. Most recently, she served as writer and co–executive producer on the Golden Globe–nominated ABC series Alaska Daily, created by Oscar-winning writer Tom McCarthy and starring two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank. Sandra holds a BA in literature from Yale. This is her first novel.
WEBSITE |
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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