"Oh, I LOVED writing the spicy scenes."
Bestselling suspense author Samantha M. Bailey on waking nightmares, letting renegade characters take the wheel, and her sizzling new novel, A FRIEND IN THE DARK
WTF is really going on?! It’s a question humans ask ourselves throughout the day (some of us more than others), but in the case of Samantha M. Bailey’s suspense novels, the stakes couldn’t be higher: For her heroines, sorting the truth from the lies is a matter of life and death. I loved Sam’s first two novels, WOMAN ON THE EDGE (which starts with a stranger shoving a baby into the protagonist’s arms and then jumping in front of a speeding train) and WATCH OUT FOR HER (a cat-and-mouse thrill ride about a mother trying to keep her family safe). Her new novel, A FRIEND IN THE DARK, centers on a newly single woman who reconnects with an old crush, sparking a journey of sexual self-discovery…as well as a fight for her life.
Sam and I chatted about the surreality of publication, writing non-gratuitous sex, and the pleasures and dangers of forming deep bonds online. Check out the collection of past Words With (Author) Friends, wherein I g-chat with an author and you get to read over my shoulder, and buy Sam’s awesome book!
Me: Hello, friend!
Sam: Hi!
I feel very "techy." Lol.
Hahaha. Ironically, no one else has used g-chat in the past, like, five years. So we're outdated techies?
That fits.
Congratulations on all the buzz around your latest! How are you feeling post-launch?
Thank you! Pub is such a roller coaster, always. I feel incredibly grateful for the support from my readers, friends, publisher, agent, and authors. It also always feel surreal, like it's not really happening to me. I think in my mind I'm still the girl working and wishing and hoping for a book deal, and I can't quite believe it's true, even after three books. Do you ever feel like that?
Yes, absolutely! I totally get that. It's such a surreal couple of weeks and I keep expecting to wake up and discover it was all a dream.
Exactly! Could you imagine? Like that dream in which all your teeth fall out, but when you wake up you're so happy because they're all still intact. But this would be the nightmare upon waking.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Andrea Bartz: Get It Write to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.