Sitting Down with Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke: Authors of The Good Widow @LIZANDLISA ‏@LITTLEABOOKS

Earlier this month, I read The Good Widow (you can check out my full review here) and I loved it. The Good Widow was the perfect novel for a summer at the beach or to binge read in your PJs (with a glass of wine, of course!). From the first pages, I was completely hooked.

Obviously, I knew I had to have this writing duo on Clues and Reviews!  So, without further ado, let’s see what Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke had to say when I asked them about their novel, their upcoming work and who would die first in a Zombie Apocalypse. Just some run of the mill questions.

First off, thank you so much for agreeing to answer my questions and to be featured on Clues and Reviews!

Thank you! Happy to be here!

So, I am dying to know how this writing duo thing works exactly?!  Does it start off chatting about ideas over a bottle of wine?  Is it very formal?  Do you take turns writing chapters?  How is the process different than that of a solo author?

We would love to chat about ideas over a bottle of wine! But we live several thousand miles away from each other—Liz in our hometown in San Diego, And Lisa in Chicago. Our process works like this: One if us will begin a chapter and then send it to the other—she then edits it and sends back. We pass it back and forth until it’s done and then move on to the next one!

Your last three novels have been very “chick-lit” based.  What made you decide to make the switch into suspense?  Was the jump difficult for you or did it feel like a natural progression?

We love writing about women and their relationships, and our first three novels each had a magical aspect to them. We had found ourselves reading mostly suspense novels, and when it came time to pitch new book ideas to our agent, we decided to still focus on stories about women and their relationships, but center them around suspenseful and mysterious storylines.

If you were able to tell your readers three things about The Good Widow, what would they be?

 

• It’s darkly funny

• You will relate to characters even if you don’t like what they’ve done

• It isn’t the story you think it is

 

What is up next?  I know your novel Famous Last Words will release in 2018, any chance we can get the inside scoop on what this one will be about?!

We just finished a novel we’re really excited about and our publisher is moving it to the 2018 slot! It’s called GIRLS NIGHT OUT, about four women who travel to Tulum, Mexico to reconnect after an estrangement but one of them goes missing.

What do you both like to do when you aren’t writing?  

Liz stays busy with her kid’s sports schedules and her “day job” in the pharmaceutical industry and Lisa Juggles the busy schedules of two teens and a six-year-old, cooks, cleans (a lot!) and watches a lot of mindless television while drinking wine! 

Now a few rapid-fire questions!  Which one of you is more like to:

Cry in Public? Oh! Probably Liz, but neither of us are big criers.

Binge watch a season of reality TV? Lisa, for sure!

Be the first to die in a Zombie apocalypse? Liz. Not sure why.

Plan and organize things? Lisa, but Liz is a close second.

Drop their phone immediately after they purchase it? Liz. She does it a lot!

A big thanks to Lisa and Liz for answering my questions and, if you haven’t already, The Good Widow is amazing and you should add it to your TBR piles!