Bestselling author Katie Sise returns to the podcast to discuss YOU MUST BE NEW HERE, a dark and twisty suspense novel about a friendship that is put to the test when a young woman disappears from a quiet community. Katie dives into her novel’s themes of intoxicating, magnetic friendships; motherhood; divorce; and the emotional weight of raising a medically fragile child. She also shares how her own family’s experiences with loss and illness shaped the story, as well as her improvisational writing style, love of teen characters, and commitment to telling emotionally resonant, twisty stories.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome back Katie. So happy to have you on Totally Booked with Zibby again to talk about You Must Be New Here. Your latest novel. Congratulations. 

Katie: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. 

Zibby: It was such a nice surprise after finishing the book to see your lovely note in the acknowledgements to me. That was so sweet. Oh my gosh. I'm like, oh my God, Kyle, look.

Anyway, it was very exciting. 

Katie: Oh, good. Well, you deserve that in a ton more so. 

Zibby: Oh, please. 

Katie: I'm glad you thought, because I do always wonder if people, I'm like, do people read the acknowledgements? I always do. Sometimes I read them first. 

Zibby: Yeah, I read them. 

Katie: Yeah. 

Zibby: I love to read them. 

I love to, it's like a, a treat.

Although the other day I did start reading an acknowledgement section and they were like, if you're reading this before, reading the book, and I was like, oh, you taught me. Right, right, right. 

Katie: Okay, so what is your book about? Okay, so this book was a lot of fun to write and it's really, I think mostly about female friendship.

Someone once a reader, an earlier reader told me that in a way it's almost like it has almost. Qualities of a romance where, but, but really like with friendship and you know, as with all my books, it's characters kind of, that are in unthinkable circumstances and friendships are put to the tests. And there's a lot of, you know, there's like mother child relationships, there's always sisters somewhere in my books, and this is a story about.

This woman who's living in a town much like mine, and she was a former artist and she has a daughter named Daisy who is medically fragile. And you know, she's, and she's gone through a divorce. So you open the book on meeting this character who I think is quite lovely. Hopefully readers will too. I really loved writing her.

And she's, she's a very good, she's a good mother. And you know, life is kind of going along one way and then a neighbor comes and moves into the house next door to her and they kind of live high. You know, always, there's always woods and cliffs involved. 'cause I feel like my imagination is like, I love, we live in the woods and I, I enjoy them from afar.

So the neighbor moves in and it kind of awakens something in my character Sloan and she just feels this amazing connection and it all happens very quickly. It really takes place over the course of one week and right when this neighbor moves in and they're having all these late nights and they're connecting, we've all like felt that.

Spark like a really magnetic female friendship where you're just completely like, it's almost like a switch has flipped and you feel like you've known the person forever and you're having all these great conversations. And then a few days into all of this Sloan's babysitter, Margaret disappears, and then is found, is found killed.

And so. The book kind of spirals from there. There's another character named Clara who it's told from the perspective of Margaret, the babysitter who has disappeared. Sloan, the young mom with the daughter Daisy, and then also Clara, who's like this very forward facing, really involved on like. And, and so many of us can, I think, relate or, and, and it's a luxury to be able to relate, right?

You're able to be involved in school and you're doing all the things and you're like showing up and saying yes to everything, and you're on, you know, all the boards and all the things. And outwardly she has this very beautiful, perfect life that behind the scenes, um, things are going on within her marriage and her home life.

So everything sort of, their lives are very intertwined and everything spirals and secrets are revealed and all the things. 

Zibby: Wow. 

Katie: That's a long, long-winded answer to What is your book about? 

Zibby: No, that's great. I read the whole book and totally enjoyed it and I was giving a running commentary 'cause I read a lot of it and I stuck in traffic and on this weekend long trip.

And I kept being like, I think it's this guy. I think it's this person who did it. No, I think it's this person. 

Katie: I think it's this person. 

Zibby: Nope. They're like, where's, you know, where's the twist? 

Anyway. 

Katie: Well, and that's what I have going on the whole time I'm writing, so I. I'm not an outliner, which you and I have talked about.

I do not outline. So I love to just pretend like it's Netflix and I'm just opening my computer to see what they're gonna do and where it's gonna go. So I never know who my killer is. I never know who my bad guy is, and they kind of reveal them. They revealed themselves to me sometimes. Like I've definitely had it happen where it was not someone that I thought it was gonna be, and they sort of come out of the woodwork.

And then there's obviously the moments in revision that you have to go back and make that feel really believable. But. I also think sometimes it's always also there. Like I, I'm like, oh, right, it is. Of course it's you, like you are doing this in chapter three, that was a little bit off and I didn't pick up on it.

So I love seeing what they're gonna do. I like throwing in them in a room and they totally surprise you. It feels like improv, like I, my background is in, is in theater and improv and you always had to say yes to everything and see where everybody's going with everything. Like the only rule is to just allow it to happen.

Zibby: So amazing. 

Katie: It's gone that way. Yeah. 

Zibby: You wrote, you wrote in a really poignant way about divorce too, and you had this one section. She, Sloan and Dave have a pretty close divorce relationship where they're coming and going all the time for their daughter, Daisy. But you have a moment where Dave knocks on the door of his and Sloan's.

House, which used to be both of their homes, and now it's mostly Sloan's house, and she has this reaction to having her ex-husband knock on his own front door for the first time. Tell me about that. I feel like that's something somebody who's divorced must have told you, or.

Katie: Yeah.

Zibby: Tell me about that. 

Katie: Yeah. No, so no one has mentioned that I, I think that the reason I like this job is that the thing that I always, when I was younger. Had going on, which was good and bad, was a sort of an oversensitivity just to the world and people's what somebody else was going through. And so usually, and while I would never assume that I would understand what it would feel like to be divorced, 'cause I can't and, but I, I like would imagine these little things that like somebody like that must happen that moment where like suddenly it's not both of your place and that just has to feel even though they had raised their child in this house and they loved that house.

So yeah, that one sort of came in the moment and. You know, the one thing I did in this book, it's funny 'cause the div, the divorced family, I, I wor, I also hope I did justice with in this. Particular book, the Family With Daisy, having a medically fragile child that will keep me up at night. So like, I won't worry about bad reviews.

I don't worry if somebody doesn't like it. Like that's totally okay for, I, I feel like, and, and I'm, this is, I can say this after being 15 years into it, the first novel I wrote, I was extremely upset when I read bad reviews. And then I kind of realized like, that's just part of it. It's okay. And it's better to have readers, even if sometimes they don't like it.

But the one thing that does keep me up at night is making sure that I've represented something. I remember talking about with, when we discussed the break on your, on your podcast, and I was saying that I wanted to really get the postpartum mm-hmm. Mental illness really correctly. Like, you know, I can use my own experience as much as I can, but then I need to make sure that I'm doing it right.

So the, so for this book, I would say that I'm glad that you. Glad that you liked that part. And I would say the thing that I was like, gosh, I've gotta get this right, wa was, Daisy was the character who has, uh, primary pulmonary hypertension. And so I picked that because my little cousin and my aunt both died of it.

And so I felt like I could at least speak to it in a, a senses of enough way and, and coming with a little bit of understanding. Um, and, and two of my best friends here have medically fragile children. And so I felt like I wanted that to be on the page like I wanted. That represent, I wanted that representation to be there, but I had to be very careful about how I wanted to do it in the right way.

And that stuff keeps me, I mean, that keeps me up at night. Like I feel like you just wanna get, you wanna get that stuff right. But I'm also glad that, that, that felt authentic. Daisy and Dave's. Where they were at. And because usually I feel like I'm writing characters right in the thick of a marriage.

Like something is going wrong, some secret's been uncovered or whatever it is, but with them it was, there was almost like this slowness, like there's not a lot of, like, there's not much passion loss there. Like, and you don't know why. Got, they got, they had their divorce and I knew I wanted there to be some massive reason that just kind of like she says, sucked all the air out of the room and um, and then you find out what that is.

But yeah, it was, it was a different thing to write than usual. 

Zibby: Well, you wrote about the illness really beautifully, and you wrote about your loss in the acknowledgements, which I did read for our earlier thing, but I'm so sorry that you went through that and you had this one moment where Sloan is worrying about the murder and all this other stuff, and she's like.

But look, we have a kid who might not outlive us and it puts everything into context. 

Katie: Yep. Totally. Totally. 

Zibby: And he's like, we're gonna, every day is a gift or something like that. Like, we're gonna make every day as great as it can be, and we're not even gonna go there. So how, tell me about what happened with your family and how you personally interacted, but how it affected everybody.

I mean.

Katie: Right. And I remember being, so I was, my aunt was diagnosed when, so I, it was so she gave birth. To my cousin Jessica when she was 28, and that's when they realized that she had primary pulmonary hypertension. And it can come on, it's, you know, it can come on as a child for a child. It can also come on as an, she didn't realize it until she gave birth and she just didn't feel right.

Didn't feel right, and then she. It. This is nuts. So that was under, she gave birth to her on December 13th. And actually, um, and again, some of this is, you know, the way a family story goes and develops and takes on its own life. But my understanding is that she came either extremely close to death or had like something incredibly medically, sort of extremely serious, right up to the edge happened during Jessica's birth, and then she actually died 10 years to the day after.

So my cousin Jessica was 10. 

Zibby: Hmm. 

Katie: So like my family, you know, we, we come from a family of like, there's a lot of faith. There's a lot, it's a big family, like huge Irish Catholic family, so a lot, there's also a lot of loss. My mom is one of 12 kids, um, my dad's one of nine. And so there's a lot of, like, a lot of love, a lot of everything right, and a lot of loss.

So my godmother, my Aunt Katie, I'm named after, and. Her and then Jessica was in her twenties when she died. So it was like, it was really, it was really kind of shakes the ground from under you. And I remember my mom and my sister and I are extremely close and, and now as an adult with children, I think about it from my mom's perspective when my, when her sister, when her little sister passed, like at, at age 38, you know, and so it just felt like.

I felt like something to not shy away from. That's what I'll say. Like even though it made me nervous to write about, 'cause I was like, I hope I can do this, but then, and do it, do it respectfully. It felt like something I didn't necessarily didn't wanna shy away from. And I love their mother daughter. I love Sloan and Daisy's relationship on the page like that.

She just delights in her and. You know, that's, that's her only child and she just, she just adores her. 

Zibby: Yeah. Oh, well it was, thank you for sharing all that. And the relationship, obviously every parent, not every many parents feel that sense of protection, but I feel like you just upped the ante sort of on that instinct by, by adding this extra layer and it's, you know, I just felt so bad when you know, the fear of like the falling and you know, oh, she's gonna fall. Like we all have that. Like, oh my gosh, what if, you know, 

Katie: What if? Right? 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Katie: And sometimes I find with fiction, it's almost like taking a feeling that you've had and trying to like really magnify it. Like if you felt shades of depression or you felt shades of, of fear over something, you know, sometimes it's like you can put yourself, it's so much easier to put yourself in someone's shoes, which is why you know every, not to wax poetic about going through hard times, but they, it does make you so much more empathetic.

Zibby: It's true.

Katie: Right? Like you're just like, okay, I can imagine what that would, could feel like in your situation or, or times 40 or whatever it is, you know, and it makes you far less judgmental and more just willing to kind of, I don't know, go there and make everything, doesn't have to be so perfect. 

Zibby: Well, I also loved your teen characters, uh, Margaret, the babysitter and her boyfriend.

And you know, as a mother of twin teenagers, I feel like I was relating to both of them, like her trying to get into college and what happens there, and then how he feels about it and their own interaction. And you know, there's one moment where he gets quite upset and I was so happy you put that in because.

Just because you're a big strapping teenage boy doesn't mean you don't still have feelings. 

Katie: Right. So I like that you put that layer of realness, honestly, into the, yeah. 

Zibby: Into narrative as well. 

Katie: Yeah. I love writing teenagers and I also feel like, of course there, somebody's sanding outside. You can let me know if it's too loud and I'll move.

But I love writing teenagers because I think that a part of me still feels like I am, I just wrote a new scene for something where it's a lifeguard and I'm like, I. I actually found pages that I wrote when I was 19. And not like to knock myself and be like, 'cause maybe I should have improved more. But I read those pages that I wrote in 19.

I was like, I, this could be in a chapter in a book. I mean, this is, I was always so interested in families and like, I was always interested in marriage. Like I used to love babysitting because I love other people's houses and other people's lives and like thinking about what goes on. And I just, I love family dynamics.

I just find them to be so interesting. But yeah. But I, I love writing teenagers because I think a part of me still feels. That, like, I love that exciting age when the world is open and anything can happen and you have all these like, big dreams and you, you know, kind of scrapping it all together and making it work.

But, um, so I love writing Margaret. I feel, I feel like she was a real fun. I mean, I, I actually hate, obviously that what happens to her in the book, and I have to sometimes put that outta my head while I'm writing or else it's too dark. Mm. You know, and I've had other books where I won't mention what they are in case anybody doesn't want the twist room.

But I've had other books where like I, I set out thinking that character will just unfortunately have to die and then I can't do it in the end. And the character, something happens and like, oh my gosh, they're still alive. So this time I had to put my head down and just be like, okay, this is where this book needs to go for everything else to sort of, you know, come to light.

I love that construct of, um, and I'm, with the current project I'm working on now, I'm doing the same. I love the idea of. Like a mystery in present day, just ripping the bandaid off an old mystery, and you're like, that's what happened. And it takes the new thing. So it's almost like a dual mystery, but they're so intertwined.

It just feels like a, it feels like a good, a fun way to discover what's, what's really going on. 

So how, how do you approach each project? Like if on the other side of the Zoom, do you have sticky notes? And I know you don't outline, but do you have anything. Anything there? 

Or do you just like, I have to know the, I have to know the twist.

That's actually the only thing I have to know and that I'm okay. Like if I know that there's gonna be just like a bananas twist. I feel like in this genre you can't just write something that's really formulaic. I just think that people want, I feel like part of this job is that hopefully that you're reading and you can't put it down.

That's like my biggest goal is that you're being entertained. Like I love the word entertainment. I take it really seriously. I feel like in my, any hard time I've ever been through, like to be able to turn to a book in a movie. Is just the biggest gift. So like to me, my first main job, even more than writing a nice sentence, is that you're pulled in and you're entertained.

So that like when you're in traffic, you're like, okay, but I'm also like enjoying what's happening with these characters. This is really entertaining. And so I would say, as long as I know that I have a really good jaw dropping twist. That. I mean, jaw dropping sounds like very cliche, but something where people are really gonna be like, okay, I did not, I didn't see that coming and I haven't seen it before.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Katie: That part's hard 'cause you don't wanna, you know, you wanna do a twist that hopefully feels really original. My favorite book for twists is the vacation rental. Like, I just loved the twists in that one when I, that was the one before this one. But I do like some of the little, the little things that are thrown in here as well.

This one feels, yeah, they feel like a little more subtle and a little like darker, but I, I do. As long as I have the twist, I can write, I can write, just kind of keep going. And usually, you know, now I would say this far in, there's not as much revision. I mean, maybe there should be, but I feel like there's not as much going in and tearing things apart and like now I've gotta scrap five chapters.

It just feels more like, okay, we've gotta just trust that I know how to get you from point A to point B. And sometimes people will ask, well what about like, what about all these dual story? How do you keep the timelines straight and the storylines and the Margaret 10 years ago with the, you know, or five years ago with the care.

I think it was only three years ago actually. I think we changed that, but with the present day. And I feel like at the end of the day, you're always telling a linear story. Even if it, even if you're going back in five years, like I'm still, I still have to tell you what's going on with Cole and Margaret and where they are to sort of, to figure it all out.

But other folks, you know, it'll, it'll jump around a little more. And I, I, I just still feel like it's, you're telling the same, you gotta like reveal the information at the right time, no matter what timeline you're in. So what number book is this of yours? Um, okay, so this is, so I did, I first wrote a book called Creative Girl, which was about having a creative career and then, which I had like no business writing because I was 28, but I thought I did, and I think at the moment that was, I, I don't know, but I love that book, but I, it was like a lot of like my own sort of, you know, just when you set out and you don't know.

What you're doing and it's really circ you, you know, it's like the path is so circular and you just are trying to, to navigate that. And so I, that was a fun way to start and it really opened a lot. I, I used to be a TV host and I was making jewelry, which was really fun, and I, it sort of felt like that that was a way to get back into writing was to, to work on that project.

And then I found my agent that way, and I love my agent so much. And then I wrote three young adult books. I wrote a novel that didn't sell. I wrote a paranormal romance. Which I still reread like every two years, and I'm like, oh, I love this character. Like what? 

Zibby: Just try it again. Try it again.

Katie: I know. I'm literally like. 

Zibby: Now's the time.

Katie: Well, you, maybe you need to start publishing. Are you publishing any, anyone? 

Zibby: No, no, no, I'm not. But I mean like the market is ready for it. 

Katie: We'll see. So that was in 2000? Around 2000. 10. And I remember when it didn't sell, I was like just so devastated. I'm like, oh no, like writing fiction is so much harder.

What am I gonna do? And, but then I just kind of figured it out. I did some ghost writing, which was helpful to practice, you know? And then I did three young adult novels for Harper Collins. And then I did, this is the fifth one, so this would be the eighth, ninth book, eighth novel. This is my fifth adult suspense, so for Amazon and so, so yeah, nine novels, which is just crazy.

I mean, that's just bananas. Although then at times I go to like when there'll be an author event and, and someone will be like, well, I've written 40. And I'm like, okay, well. That's really amazing. So. 

Zibby: That's rare though. I could count how many people, right? 

Katie: I mean, right, right, right. 

Zibby: I know of who have done, like someone came the other day and was like 60 books or something, Melissa de Cruz.

But a lot of those are, um, not adult you could do You can write a lot more. Books for kids, so. 

Katie: Right, right. 

Zibby: It's really, it's like kind of cheating. No, I'm kidding. 

Katie: But we'll tell Melissa that. We'll, we'll.

Zibby: We'll tell her she's a cheater. 

Katie: We're impressed. But also, right. I used a fan girl over her so much when I was writing YA.

I'm sure I still, if I met her today, I would also do that. But I, there's just, there's just really good storytellers. All over the place. Like, and I feel like she's one of them. It's like, you know, she'll grab you in no matter what she's writing about, and you read the whole book and you're, you know, I mean, I, I love the art of story.

My dad used to, when I senior year, I was allowed to get out early. And so I'd come home before like lacrosse practice or something, and I would watch soap opera operas and my dad would come home, you know, the really like a steamy make scene on the tv. He would be like, I can't believe you're watching this.

And I'd be like, dad, it's the art of the story. Like I'm learning the art of story. And so I always remind him that now I'm like, I told you those soap operas, I mean, did they just, you know. 

Zibby: Paid off.

Katie: Beginning, middle, and an end. Although yours is like beginning, middle, middle, middle, middle. That's what I've learned is the difference.

Like someone explained that to me once, the difference between a book and a movie versus a TV show that you're like living in the middle. I thought that was so interesting. 

Zibby: Oh, I like that. 

Katie: Yeah. 

Zibby: Huh, interesting. 

Okay, so what's the plot of your next book? 

Katie: Okay, so the next book I wanna try, I just started it and I wanna try, so it opens with this sort of like grandiose scene at, at the pool and there's like a, a near accident, everything's okay.

And then I want it to be the story of this family. And I want, unfortunately we have a Margaret situation, so like somewhat. So unfortunately someone has to die as of now before I revive her and bring her back. And my thinking is that like as usual, it'll be like the story of like a family and sort of how they recover and then a, and then a present day mystery.

And I wanna show the family sort of 10 years ago when it happens. And then in 10 years and then in 10, the 10 years, like in the present day storyline, I want there to be like a daughter-in-law, I think with a baby. And like go into that dynamic of like daughters-in-law, like mothers in-law, like all those things.

And she's living in her mother-in-law's house where her husband's sister disappeared. So I think I just wanna kind of..

Zibby: What do you think you're recovering from the most right now? Recovering from, if anything. If anything. 

Katie: You mean me? Oh, me as like a human, do you mean like my.. 

Zibby: You as a human? 

Katie: My past? Like traumas you mean?

Zibby: Or this like today? You know, like if you said like right now I'm like recovering from, it could be something funny. It could be something sad, it could be, I don't know, like, 

Katie: Thank God, what am I recovering from? That's such a great question. Like a million things. I would say I'm always kind of on like the razor sharp edge of like.

Honestly, like worrying that something, you know, and that to me is so magnified since having kids. It's like, not even, I think as I've gone along, I, I just talked to a mom, a friend of mine who has two little ones who are probably like four in one. And I think it's like, as you keep going, you kind of learn how to, you kind of learn how to do it a little more.

But yeah, I would say I'm like trying to be like relaxed and present and not 80 steps in the future. Although the thing if I was gonna write a personal essay, which you're good at, and I'm not, I would sometimes I feel like the moment is like actually more full when you're thinking about like, like sometimes I'll look at my kids and think about if someone had showed me a video of them 10 years ago and then showed me like this current day and I just feel filled with just like such awe that, that'

life and that that can be like so beautiful. And part of that is also like looking into the future and like wondering what will be and like it to even daring to hope that there is like a future where everybody is together and happy and healthy. So while I'm all for living in the present, I, for me there's like something to be said about the past, the present and the future and how it kind of like the moment feels the fullest sometimes.

In a way when I'm in all three, although I'm sure every single therapist in the world would disagree with what I'm saying. 

Zibby: Not at all. 

Katie, thank you. Thank you for your entertaining read, for keeping my mind sharp as I tried to figure out what was happening next. I am now going to treat. Sort of new friends with a grain of caution that maybe I wouldn't before.

Not to give anything away, but just, you never know. 

Katie: Never know. 

Zibby: You never know about people. 

Katie: And also, yay for babysitters. So there's, there's that. 

Zibby: My husband does say though, he's like, we're not, you have to stop. He's like, we're never gonna get babysitter again. Thank you so much. 

Katie: Thank you for having me. 

Zibby: Of course. Bye Katie. 

Katie: Bye.