What is the title of your latest release?
A SPECIAL INTEREST IN MURDER (Ada Latia book 1)
What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
Autistic lady detective cannot bear injustice, especially when directed at a misunderstood, hurting autistic girl.
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
I knew it had to take place at a special autistic school, but it was because of recent political events that I chose to put it in Idaho, because Idaho’s ultraconservative population seemed an apt setting for a school designed to “fix” autism in young children in ways that would be likely to be unethical and possibly criminal.
Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?
Of all the heroines I’ve ever written, Ada Latia is most close to my actual self. The main difference is that I allow her, because she was diagnosed at a young age, to be fully autistic in ways that I never was at younger ages. I was always masking, and Ada is free not to because she knows who she is and is unapologetic about her strengths and weaknesses.
What are three words that describe your hero?
fierce, intelligent, damaged
What’s something you learned while writing this book?
I learned that I can write novels on a very limited time budget. In my previous life as an author, I would have all day to work my writing around. But I now work a full-time job in the high-powered finance world, and every section of this book was written in the small blocks of break time that are allotted to me as I work on the phones.
Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I wrote this book almost completely straight from beginning to end, though there was a lot of editing from first draft to second draft. I am a pantser, as they say. Or at least I was in this book, discovering the world and the characters each day as I sat down to write.
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
I am a chocolate fanatic. All things chocolate. Brownies. Ice cream. Chocolate dipped almond horns. Chocolate dipped macaroons. Chocolate chip cookies. I could go on.
Describe your writing space/office!
I have a desk at home when I’m working from home, but when I’m “in office,” I take my computer to a little private room in the office and work from there. I learned some years ago how to write almost anywhere, on a plane, in a hotel room or coffee shop. Even if my computer isn’t broken, I can remember what happened yesterday and just type myself an email with the next section.
Who is an author you admire?
So many. I read almost every genre and every age group. Tim Hallinan. Mick Herron. Jamie Ford. Glennon Doyle. Tia Levings. Kate Bowler. Maggie Smith. Susannah Kearsley. Kelly Barnhill. Kristin Hannah. Lois McMaster Bujold. John Green. John Scalzi.
Is there a book that changed your life?
Every book I read changes me, even the ones I put aside. But Maggie Smith’s You Can Make This Place Beautiful changed me first as a poem and then as a memoir. I think it did what every really great book does, which is give me the reaction, “You mean you can write about THIS?”
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 had almost given up on being a writer. I proclaimed myself unable to write any more for several years after my divorce. I had gone from the kind of writer who wrote every day and sent out everything, often before it was really ready, to a writer who wrote only sometimes and lacking in confidence that I’d once taken for granted. When I got an email from the editor at Severn House who had asked me years ago to send something to her, offering me a three-book deal, I was floored. I had expected a kind rejection. And then I had to get ready to be a writer again.
What’s your favorite genre to read?
Oh, gosh. Not possible for me to pick one. I love mystery right now, but I also love fantasy, science fiction, memoir, poetry, and young adult. All good books teach me what it is to be human, and as someone who has sometimes/often been told that I am a robot or not human or not empathetic, I am drawn always to stories that help me understand how I am human in the same way as other people and how I am human in different ways than other people.
What’s your favorite movie?
Hmm. I don’t watch a lot of movies in theater because I have sensory issues there. And I tend toward small screen for many other reasons, including that the character has much more time to develop and also because my autistic brain wants to be delivered a hit of the same stimulus, so some of my favorite shows are just the most long-running ones like ER or Grey’s Anatomy. I will say that watching Patience this last month has been fabulous. If only I could get a treatment of my autistic main character like that!
What is your favorite season?
Fall. I am a knitter/crocheter and I love the feel of yarn in my hands on a cool day. I love wearing one of my Scottish sweaters and going out on long walks on a fall afternoon.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
Ooh, I hate my birthday. So much that I have a fake birthday listed on Facebook and for a long time, Wikipedia had that date listed until they figured out I was lying. I really, really hate my birthday. I could tell you a list of bad birthday stories, including the one where I woke up to find three inches of water on the floor of the basement apartment I was in and spent all day cleaning it up with the gift I was given for my birthday that year—a wet-dry vac. But birthdays give me hives. Even people telling me “Happy Birthday” is scary because I’m sure the universe will curse me for any happiness. I allow people to wish me Happy Birthday on an alternate date and a few very good friends who know the real date say something vague like “Have a good day for no apparent reason.”
What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
Because I’m autistic, I have some weird special interests, including financial podcasts like Ramit Sethi’s and Tori Dunlap’s. I listen to them over and over again while at work and not on the phones. It soothes my brain because they are all about numbers and very clear answers, which is weird because as a writer, I don’t follow any rules and there are no answers in the world of art. But that is one of the fundamental contradictions at the heart of who I am as a person. Ada has that contradiction in her, as well.
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Thai food is the best food.
What do you do when you have free time?
I still triathlons, though I am now retired from Ironman. I also crochet and knit and like to bake. I am, however, according to multiple children, a terrible cook.
What can readers expect from you next?
EX-WIVES MURDER CLUB will be out soon from Severn House next year. There will be at least one more Ada Latia book. I’m also working on a memoir called MERCY.
Ada Latia #1
A Mystery
A brilliant neurodivergent female sleuth colliding with an FBI agent with a secret. A crime that is not all it seems. A page-turning, red-herring-filled murder mystery, perfect for fans of Nita Prose, Richard Osman and Anthony Horowitz.
Ada Latia is twenty-four years old. She used to be the youngest millionaire in the cosmetics industry. She used to be married. Now, she spends her time studying ways to communicate with aliens. After all, aliens could not possibly be more cruel or deceitful than other humans.
Ada’s spiteful ex-husband Rex believes autistic people like her are monsters, so she’s not surprised when he calls her to share a clickbait article gleefully shouting that one autistic child has killed another at a special school in Idaho.
Rex just means to hurt her, but when Ada reads the article, it’s not the lies about autism being fake that catch her eye: it’s a disturbing photograph of the dead child. The image of the girl is perfect – too perfect. As if someone has committed a murder, and then carefully staged the scene to cover it up.
Ada reports her suspicions to the FBI, and the case crosses the desk of her old classmate Henry Bloodstone, who invites her to assist him. Ada’s not a trained investigator. It’s painful for her to come up against situations she’s not an expert in. She barely remembers Henry, even though it’s clear that he remembers her. But the death is a mystery – and Ada, who counts murder as one of her special interests, has never learned to let a mystery go.
Mystery Amateur Sleuth | Mystery Private Eye [Severn House, On Sale: September 2, 2025, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9781448316434 / eISBN: 9781448316441]
Mette Ivie Harrison is the author of numerous books for young adults, including The Princess and the Hound and Mira, Mirror. The Bishop's Wife is her first adult mystery. She holds a PhD in Germanic Languages and Literatures from Princeton University and is a nationally ranked triathlete. A practicing Mormon, she is now a blogger for Huffington Post. She is the mother of five children and lives with her husband in Utah.
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