Jean Hanff Korelitz and Liz Moore discuss the art of mystery at the Texas Book Festival.

Happy New Year, listeners! On this special episode of Fully Booked, recorded live at the Texas Book Festival last November, I’m excited to share the rollicking conversation I had with New York Times–bestselling authors Jean Hanff Korelitz and Liz Moore on a featured panel entitled “The Art of Mystery.” We assembled in the main auditorium of the Texas State Capitol for a deep dive into their highly decorated novels, The Sequel­ and The God of the Woods:

In The Sequel (Celadon Books, 2024)—a follow-up to Korelitz’s ingenious thriller The Plot (2021)—a “less-than-grief-stricken widow follows in her novelist husband’s bestselling footsteps but finds that someone knows more about her than is safe—for either of them,” Kirkus writes in a starred review. “Wicked entertainment.”

“Many years after her older brother, Bear, went missing, Barbara Van Laar vanishes from the same sleepaway camp he did, leading to dark, bitter truths about her wealthy family,” Kirkus writes in a starred review of The God of the Woods (Riverhead, 2024). “‘Don’t go into the woods’ takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.”

Moore, Korelitz, and I begin with a medical maxim that, curiously, appears in both of their novels (“When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras”). They tell us whether “author” was considered a viable profession in their families of origin, share a bit about the mysteries at the heart of their novels, and have a few choice words for anyone who reads The Plot without first reading The Sequel. We discuss building a mystery, family secrets, propulsion, and suspense. We wrap up with what they’re reading and what they’re working on.

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

Zenith Man by McCracken Poston Jr.

From Cab Driver to Carnegie Hall by David Singer

Shakey Town Express by Justin Arnold

The Boy Who Learned To Live by D.N. Moore

A Life Lived on Three Continents by Hanay Kang Angell

Fully Booked is produced by Cabel Adkins Audio and Megan Labrise.