1--What is the title of your latest release?
WOMEN LIKE US
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
WOMEN LIKE US is a literary thriller that examines the complexities and responsibilities of female friendship—what brings women together, and what drives them apart.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
WOMEN LIKE US is a sequel to INVISIBLE WOMAN, at the end of which my protagonist Joni has left New York City and returned to Los Angeles at the start of the pandemic. Now it’s five years later and she’s still living in her longtime home in Malibu, when circumstances bring her back to Brooklyn, where her story picks up.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
Yes! I would love to have a long talk with her about…everything.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Smart. Conflicted. Faithful.
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
I learned that I could write a satisfying novel without a detailed outline and follow instinct instead. I trusted the story’s emotional landscape to lead the way to a larger degree than before, and never lost my footing, which was a great experience.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
When I first start a novel, I go back often and revise. But as momentum picks up I do less and less of that. At some point, the story becomes a strong engine, and it takes me forward pretty quickly. Once I have a full draft, I revise extensively, several times.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Crumbly scones, preferably with walnuts and currants.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
I write in a private, sunlit room at the top of the Brooklyn house where I’ve lived for nearly thirty years. Sliding glass doors open up onto a verdant (in spring and summer) terrace. If the weather’s warm I sometimes take my laptop out there to write. It’s my favorite spot in the house.
10--Who is an author you admire?
I love the work of too many authors to name them all, but there’s a special place in my heart for Donna Tartt. She doesn’t publish often, but when she does the impact is seismic. After I read THE GOLDFINCH I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to read another novel, let along write one.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
The first book I wrote—a novella, when I was 19—changed my life in that it turned me into a novelist.
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.
By now I’ve published many books, but the very first time a publisher offered to publish one of my novels, I was in my late twenties. It was a small press, the publisher herself invited me to lunch and that’s when she made the offer. Needless to say, it was an extremely exciting moment in a young writer’s life.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
I mostly read literary fiction, but I also love historical fiction and biography.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
My favorite recent movie is The Brutalist. It has the breadth and depth of a Russian novel. I loved it.
15--What is your favorite season?
Spring, when you feel amazed to have made it through another winter and every little green bud seems like a miracle and a gift.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
I love to spend my birthday with family. It’s in the winter so we’re usually indoors, going to a museum or restaurant or both.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Adolescence. It’s a four-part limited series that is brilliant on every level, both in terms of its groundbreaking filmmaking (every hour-long episode is a single shot) and the complexity with which it plumbs the minds, hearts and lives of each of the characters.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Anything with fish, vegetables and whole grains, and not too spicy.
19--What do you do when you have free time?
I love taking long walks, often with our dog. And during the pandemic I discovered the joys of knitting.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
I’m gestating the next story right now. Stay tuned.
Katia Lief’s Women Like Us is a sharply-rendered literary thriller that examines the complexities and responsibilities of female friendship—what brings women together, and what drives them apart.
Joni Ackerman was tired of being invisible.
It’s been five years since Joni Ackerman tipped the antifreeze into her husband’s cocktail. Five years since he was found dead on the stairs. Five years since she got away with murder. At first, Joni feared the consequences of her transgression, but she’s learned to embrace the power of recklessness in a way she would have hated to see in anyone else. It was that recklessness, after all, that took her to this rewarding new life.
Joni now runs Sunny Day Productions alongside her daughter, Chris, and her best friend, Val. All is well in life and work until, one day, their balance is rocked when an unexpected, and unwelcome, visitor appears.
When Joni’s brother, Marc, resurfaces after a twenty-year estrangement, Joni braces for the sibling she knew—a cruel, vindictive conman who deftly switched between personas. But this Marc on her doorstep is different. He’s older, softer. And he seems to have overcome the self-inflicted traumas of his past.
But Val isn’t fooled. She knows exactly what sort of man Marc is, and she warns Joni to keep her guard up. When Mark inevitably betrays Joni’s trust, Joni is forced to look inward. As dark thoughts, and darker compulsions, take form, Joni can’t help but wonder: ‘Is psychopathy a family trait?’
Thriller Domestic | Thriller Psychological [Grove/Atlantic, Inc., On Sale: June 3, 2025, Hardcover / e-Book , ISBN: 9780802164926 / eISBN: 9780802164933]
Born in France to American parents, Katia Lief moved to the United States as a baby and was raised in Massachusetts and New York. She teaches fiction writing as a part-time faculty member at the New School in Manhattan and lives in Brooklyn with her husband, two children, two cats, and several fish.
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