“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

If you’ve visited this page any time in the past few months, you’ve probably wondered where we’ve been. And the answer is all over the place. Both of us are navigating that delicate balance between mothering many children and writing many books. It is a wonderful place to be and we are loving (almost) every minute. But as our kids have grown (someone told us this parenting thing got easier… someone lied) and our writing commitments have expanded, our She Reads venture has needed to find a new place within our busy lives.

You’ve seen us retire the book club and watched the posts here on the blog dwindle. And if you’ve joined us over on Facebook or Twitter, you’ve seen us slowly taper off there as well. BUT! Good news!! There is one place that we’re still going strong. And that’s Instagram. (See our feed on the right) Instagram is, for both of us, our social media happy place and, for that reason, we’ve decided that, going forward, we will devote the vast majority of our time and efforts in the book sharing world over there.

So, if you’ve been with us for a while and are not following us on Instagram, we humbly ask that you come and join us. (It’s a blast, we promise!) And if you’ve been hanging out there with us already, we are so thankful that you’ve chosen to do so. While things are changing, the one thing that is staying the same– the most important thing– is that we are still sharing the books we love with people who love books. That’s what got us into this adventure. And it will keep us going for a long time to come.

Today’s post by Marybeth Whalen and Ariel Lawhon | @MarybethWhalen and @ArielLawhon

Today’s post by Marybeth Whalen and Ariel Lawhon | @MarybethWhalen and @ArielLawhon

There is something therapeutic–restful, even–about the changing of seasons. And we, at She Reads, are stepping into a major new season. After almost ten years, we will be retiring our book club next month. We’ve shared well over one hundred novels as official selections and we’ve read over ten times that many in the process. (No wonder we have reading fatigue!) This has been great fun and we’re not going anywhere, but we are ready to try something new (more on that in January). For now we are simply going to introduce you to one more amazing novel. And then we are going to rest through the holidays.

Shortly after She Reads was founded I (Ariel) met a writer named Joy Jordan-Lake who would, unbeknownst to me, become a dear friend. At the time I had just gotten the idea for The Wife The Maid And The Mistress and she was working on a novel called A Tangled Mercy. We stayed in contact and, believe it or not, we read each other’s early drafts and offered input. When Joy finished her novel I put her in contact with my agent who loved the book as much as I did. They began working together immediately and it sold shortly thereafter. A Tangled Mercy will be published on November 1st.

Here is what I can say about Joy: she is brave. I respect her immensely. And she is one of the most naturally gifted authors I’ve ever met. It is an honor to call her friend and it is an honor to have her novel, A Tangled Mercy, as our final book club selection. It has everything I love in a story: history, romance, suspense, beauty, impossible odds, bravery, tragedy, hope, and redemption. It is the kind of novel you remember.

We hope you will join us on this last adventure and we hope you love this story too.

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Told in alternating tales at once haunting and redemptive, A Tangled Mercy is a quintessentially American epic rooted in heartbreaking true events examining the harrowing depths of human brutality and betrayal, and our enduring hope for freedom and forgiveness.

After the sudden death of her troubled mother, struggling Harvard grad student Kate Drayton walks out on her lecture—and her entire New England life. Haunted by unanswered questions and her own uncertain future, she flees to Charleston, South Carolina, the place where her parents met, convinced it holds the key to understanding her fractured family and saving her career in academia. Kate is determined to unearth groundbreaking information on a failed 1822 slave revolt—the subject of her mother’s own research.

Nearly two centuries earlier, Tom Russell, a gifted blacksmith and slave, grappled with a terrible choice: arm the uprising spearheaded by members of the fiercely independent African Methodist Episcopal Church or keep his own neck out of the noose and protect the woman he loves.

Kate’s attempts to discover what drove her mother’s dangerous obsession with Charleston’s tumultuous history are derailed by a horrific massacre in the very same landmark church. In the unimaginable aftermath, Kate discovers a family she never knew existed as the city unites with a powerful message of hope and forgiveness for the world.

You can get your copy of A Tangled Mercy here.

You can add A Tangled Mercy to your Goodreads list here.

Today’s post by Ariel Lawhon | @ArielLawhon

There is nothing quite like seeing the cover of your book for the first time. It’s nothing at all like seeing your child for the first time because with a child you have some idea what you are going to get. There is no looking in the mirror or at your spouse and making an educated guess. With a book cover you are utterly clueless. Your words are turned into an image by a cover designer you have likely never met. It is their job to capture the essence of what you have written, to tell a visual story based on your actual story. The whole thing is a wonderful, baffling experience for me. Wonderful because the anticipation is delicious. Baffling because I could no sooner create a book cover than a stained glass window. The only art I’m capable of making is that which you find on the page. I am a one trick pony. I can’t even write poetry much less sing, dance, or paint.

That said, I am besotted with the cover for my new novel. It is perfect. And I think it perfectly captures the mystery found within its pages. Friends, I give you, officially, the cover for I WAS ANASTASIA:

Today’s Post by Author Gilly Macmillan | @GillyMacmillian

Secrets lie at the heart of my new novel, Odd Child Out. Two families find their normal lives torn apart when a mysterious incident endangers their teenage sons, leaving Noah Sadler unable to talk about what happened and his friend Abdi Mahad refusing to. As Detective Jim Clemo investigates, Abdi’s decision to be tight-lipped about the traumatic events of that night seems to be only the first in a series of powerful secrets my characters are keeping. Clemo must dig deep to get to the truth, and lives may depend on it.

As I wrote the novel, I found it was an intricate task to construct a story in which layers of secrecy are peeled away one by one until the truth about my characters is revealed. It made my own pulse race at times! I also began to reflect on why secrets are so tantalizing for both thriller writers and readers.

I believe it is because we all keep them. We guard them fiercely and occasionally blurt them out when we shouldn’t. The secrets we keep can induce significant feelings in us: guilt, shame, pleasure, self-satisfaction, and those are just a few of the big ones. There are a whole host of emotions that hover around secrets like a persistent cloud of midges, and thriller writers can make very good use of them.

If we keep secrets ourselves, it follows that people close to us are probably keeping secrets, too. Sometimes, we know what their secrets are. We might be co-guardians of that secret, or perhaps we have kept it a secret that we know their secret. Knowing about a secret, our own or somebody else’s, gives us power. And what if our parents or grandparents, friends or partners are keeping secrets from us? A few white lies? Sure! They may have made our lives feel more comfortable or secure from time to time. But what if they are big lies? Ones which can rip the rug out from underneath us? Ones which would change everything? None of us want to contemplate that. We don’t want to because in families and relationships we have no choice but to place our trust in other people, and if one of those people is keeping a secret from you, isn’t that basically the same as lying? Even if it’s lying by omission? Or perhaps that person might claim they were being protective by not telling you something that could hurt you.

The scale of secrets is significant. Some are small: ‘I never liked the curtains you picked out for the living room.’ These we can probably live with even if we feel annoyed. They probably fall under the White Lie category. Other secrets could make you re-evaluate your entire life. Consider these: ‘You have a sibling I never told you about because I had to give them up for adoption.’ ‘I am not your natural parent.’ ‘I am in love with somebody else.’

Then there are secrets which don’t just damage lives, but risk them. That could be because of what you know: ‘I know who murdered Colonel Mustard and I know where and how!’ Or it could be because you might use your knowledge of a secret in a way somebody else might not want you to. Blackmail, anybody? Knowledge is power, after all. How do you trust somebody to keep a secret, anyway? Particularly if more than one person knows about it? As Benjamin Franklin said: “Three may keep a secret. If two of them are dead.”

In a thriller such as Odd Child Out, as in life, secrets carry the potential to create anything from nuanced ripples to a full emotional tsunami. There’s more than one way to look at a secret and that can cause conflict between characters. Tension over whether an important secret may or may not be revealed can carry a thriller plot a long way. Secrets possess the power to influence human behaviour causing tension, plot twists, dramatic changes of direction, red herrings and more. Is it any wonder they are an essential item in the thriller writer’s toolkit?