1--What is the title of your latest release?
COUNTING BACKWARDS
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
It’s based on a true story from 2020 about incarcerated immigrants who claimed they were being sterilized without their consent. The book tells the story of one lawyer who tried to help these women and how the fight for women’s rights changed all their lives.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
I tend to base most of my books in New York City because it’s where I’m from, and I think there’s nowhere more exciting.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Yes, absolutely, as long as she promised to get back into therapy first.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Trusting, Hopeful, Screwed
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
I learned that many US prisons are run by private companies who are hired by the government, rather than being run by the government itself.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I definitely edit as I draft.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Cheeeeeese. The meltier the better.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
I have a huge, ugly desk. I don’t care one iota what the room looks like stylistically, so long as I have plenty of space to work and scatter notes and papers in a way that feels at least somewhat organized. I have a cork board behind my computer with more notes and reminders on it and also pictures of my kids and nieces and nephews scattered around.
10--Who is an author you admire?
Jodi Picoult
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. I was only ten years old when I read it, and I cried and cried and cried at the ending. That was the book that made me love reading because I suddenly understood how deeply a good book could make a person feel things.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
I was on an airplane with my oldest son flying from LA back to New York, and I read an email from my agent that had been waiting on my phone. Unfortunately, it was right as we were taking off, and the Wi-Fi on the flight wasn’t working. I had to wait until we flew across the entire country before I could respond to my agent or call my husband!
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
Romance! I can only relax if what I’m reading is very different than what I write. And also, who doesn’t love a happy ending?
14--What’s your favorite movie?
It’s a tie between Shakespeare in Love and Shawshank Redemption
15--What is your favorite season?
Fall
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
We have a family tradition. My mom used to bake me a cake, we’d all get one slice, and then when we finished that, we’d put the cake in the middle of the table and all of us would just dig right in with our forks. We’ve carried on that tradition with my kids, and it always brings me such joy getting to do something so outlandish once a year.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Zero Day!
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Italian (because of the cheese)
19--What do you do when you have free time?
I read, exercise, hang with my family and friends or cook
20--What can readers expect from you next?
Another book! The next one is about a collegiate athlete, and that’s all I’m allowed to say so far.
A Novel
A routine immigration case, a shocking legacy. Jessa Gidney's quest for justice draws her into the heart of an abhorrent conspiracy. As she uncovers her personal ties to a heartbreaking past, her life takes a dramatic turn, in this emotionally riveting novel inspired by true events.
New York, 2022. Jessa Gidney is trying to have it all—a high-powered legal career, a meaningful marriage, and hopefully, one day, a child. But when her professional ambitions come up short and Jessa finds herself at a turning point, she leans into her family's history of activism by taking on pro bono work at a nearby ICE detention center. There she meets Isobel Pérez—a young mother fighting to stay with her daughter—but as she gets to know Isobel, an unsettling revelation about Isobel's health leads Jessa to uncover a horrifying pattern of medical malpractice within the detention facility. One that shockingly has ties to her own family.
Virginia, 1927. Carrie Buck is an ordinary young woman in the center of an extraordinary legal battle at the forefront of the American eugenics conversation. From a poor family, she was only six years old when she first became a ward of the state. Uneducated and without any support, she spends her youth dreaming about a different future—one separate from her exploitative foster family—unknowing of the ripples her small, country life will have on an entire nation.
As Jessa works to assemble a case against the prison and the crimes she believes are being committed there, she discovers the landmark Supreme Court case involving Carrie Buck. Her connection to the case, however, is deeper and much more personal than she ever knew—sending her down new paths that will leave her forever changed and determined to fight for these women, no matter the cost.
Alternating between the past and present, and deftly tackling timely-yet-timeless issues such as reproductive rights, incarceration, and society's expectations of women and mothers, Counting Backwards is a compelling reminder that progress is rarely a straight line and always hard-won. A moving story of two remarkable women that you'll remember for years to come.
Women's Fiction Family Life | Thriller Legal [Harper Muse, On Sale: March 11, 2025, Paperback / e-Book , ISBN: 9781400347308 / eISBN: 9781400347315]
Jacqueline Friedland graduated Magna Cum Laude from both the University of Pennsylvania and NYU Law School. She practiced as a commercial litigator at the New York law firms of Debevoise & Plimpton, LLP and Boies, Schiller & Flexner, LLP. After determining that office life did not suit her, Jacqueline began teaching Legal Writing and Lawyering Skills at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law in Manhattan and working on her first book in her limited spare time. Finally deciding to embrace her passion and pursue writing full time, Jacqueline returned to school to earn her Masters of Fine Arts from Sarah Lawrence College, graduating from the program in 2016.
When not writing, Jacqueline is an avid reader of all things fiction. She loves to exercise, watch movies with her family, listen to music, make lists, and dream about exotic vacations. She lives in Westchester, New York with her husband, four children and a Cavalier King Charles. Trouble the Water is her first novel.
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