Sarina Bowen is a 24-time USA Today bestselling author, and a Wall Street Journal bestselling author of contemporary romance novels. Formerly a derivatives trader on Wall Street, she holds a BA in economics from Yale University. She lives in New Hampshire. Follow her on Threads, Facebook, and Instagram.
In this interview, Sarina discusses how obsessively checking the location app on her phone helped inspire her new thriller novel, Dying to Meet You, her experience in shifting genres, and more.
When my teens learned to drive, I became a little too attached to watching their locations in real time. My suspense brain wondered, What's the worst thing that could happen here?
This book took years from its idea to its execution. I started thinking hard about location apps when my kid was 16, and now he's legal to drink.
The techy hook of this book is fun, but it's only the setup, not a whole story. I needed a plot that worked well with this setup, but had its own depth.
Eventually I realized that my setup melded well with another story idea I had, about a female architect tasked with renovating an old New England mansion. Figuring out how the two stories intersected gave me the central conflict of the book. Meanwhile, I'd read several non-fiction narratives about maternity homes in the late twentieth century, and terrible things that happened there.
All these ideas simmered together until I was ready to lock down the plot of Dying to Meet You.
This title was book two of a two-book contract, which is always a little scary. The Five Year Lie was well-reviewed, so I had the usual nerves about landing the plane a second time.
The major twist of the book wasn't obvious to me until I'd written about 25,000 words. This is typical for me, though: No matter how carefully I try to outline a book, the juiciest moments of drama never reveal themselves until I start raising the walls of the story.
My particular approach to writing suspense is that the main character has to be deeply empathetic even when she's making bad choices. I hope readers are pulling for Rowan from page one, so her mistakes are all the more terrifying.
To me, the fun of domestic suspense is the idea that the main character is just a regular girl ... and anything can happen.
It's OK to try new things. After 24 USA Today bestsellers in romance, I wanted to try suspense. The switch has been scary but so rewarding. I've learned some new narrative tricks, and I'm having a lot of fun.