Dear Reader,
Four books into my fiction career, I’ve found that I quite like writing toward a twist. It’s not so much the gotcha I’m after, but rather the sense we often get walking through life that things aren’t exactly as they seem. That there’s more, always, to the story.
For the past several years, I’ve spun novels where characters grapple with big, nuanced questions that challenge their relationships and shake their beliefs in a suspenseful framework—stories that proved difficult to label, but found their readership at the cross-section of women’s fiction and suspense. My bestselling 2018 Book of the Month Club selection, Not That I Could Tell, is the best known, though my debut Almost Missed You continues to creep into new formats as a cult favorite.
My wonderfully supportive publishing team will tell you my forthcoming novel is a shift—or perhaps a pivot—away from a domestic suspense categorization that was never a tight fit, and squarely into the upmarket book club fiction realm. But I think they’d also agree with the way I prefer to see it: as not so much a shift as a lean into my strengths as a storyteller—without abandoning any of the things readers have come to know me for. Including that twist.
A Million Reasons Why is a high stakes moral dilemma story about two half-sisters who discover the other exists from a mail-in DNA test, the ensuing secrets uncovered, and the winding path to redemption. But there’s more on the line than pride or loyalty. The test results could save one sister’s life.
In my fascination with the real-life unforeseen fallout of these increasingly prevalent DNA tests, I've noticed that for many families a surprise result is a wish fulfilled or a blessing in disguise. For others, it’s an unwelcome bombshell from which they will never recover. What if, I wondered, a story could be both of these things? What if it’s a dream scenario for one-half of the families linked, and a nightmare for the other, but then—somehow—the roles begin to reverse?
The result is A Million Reasons Why. The enthusiasm from St. Martin’s Press and our early readers has been humbling. It would mean the world to me to have your support for this title as well.
Jessica Strawser
