Happy new year! I hope you’ve been settling nicely into 2024, dreaming up plans and wishes for the next 12 months. I’m drumming up the motivation to get going on my fourth book—always a daunting task when you’ve just finished the previous book and are keenly aware of how huge of an effort is ahead of you. You know what’s easier than writing the next book? Talking about one you’ve already written. To that end, it’s time to introduce you to my third born…
The title of my next book is THE HITCHCOCK HOTEL. (!!!!) It’s my only book thus far to be born with a title at the same time as the idea itself. Here’s the announcement in Publishers Marketplace (a website/newsletter for publishing industry professionals):
Want more info? Check out the detailed synopsis below.
A Hitchcock fanatic with an agenda invites old friends for a weekend stay at his secluded themed hotel in this fiendishly clever, suspenseful new novel from the international bestselling author of Darling Rose Gold Stephanie Wrobel.
Alfred Smettle is not your average Hitchcock fan. He is the founder, owner, and manager of The Hitchcock Hotel, a sprawling Victorian house in the White Mountains dedicated to the Master of Suspense. There, Alfred offers his guests round-the-clock film screenings, movie props and memorabilia in every room, plus an aviary with fifty crows.
To celebrate the hotel’s first anniversary, he invites his former best friends from his college Film Club for a reunion. He hasn’t spoken to any of them in sixteen years, not after what happened.
But who better than them to appreciate Alfred’s creation? And to help him finish it.
After all, no Hitchcock set is complete without a body.
I loved writing this book. It provided a number of technical challenges, the chief one being six (!) points of view. I swore after TMH, I would never do 3+ POVs again, then swiftly broke said vow. Thankfully, these characters—this group of former friends—were dumped in my lap. I knew them almost immediately after naming them, which was such a glorious surprise because I typically find developing characters and their voices to be the most difficult part of writing novels.
HH is also the most plotty book I’ve written. I created so many threads in the first half of the book, then spent the second half trying to untangle them in a coherent, satisfying way. With the help of my editors, I think we got there in the end. I’m really proud of the twists in this book—my beta readers never saw them coming.
Lastly, I got the chance to study Hitchcock, who we’ll be talking about a lot here in the months to come. He was a brilliant director and cripplingly insecure man. I’ve planted homages both obvious and subtle throughout my book. If you’re a Hitchcock fan, you’re in for a treat, but even if you’re not, I think you’ll still enjoy the story and maybe learn a fun fact or two.
You can pre-order the US edition here and the UK edition here. (Hoping to have a link for Canadian readers soon.) Pre-orders are a HUGE deal for authors, and I so appreciate your support.
Next time I’ll share covers with you! I can’t wait to hear what you all think.
Cheers to 2024,
What a GREAT title and premise!!!!!! When can I read it?! Xoxo