Q: Congratulations on your debut novel! WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE explores how ambition, privilege, and loyalty can twist over time. What first drew you to writing about this concept? How did the storyline come to you? 

Thank you! The idea for this book came after I had left my job as an in-house attorney, and I was feeling really disconnected. I picked up Hanya Yanagihara’s beautiful, heartbreaking novel A LITTLE LIFE, which is the story of four men who are close friends from college. For different reasons, none of the friends can stop the progression of the main character’s downward spiral. That story really forced me to consider my own friendships, how we think about relationships when we’re young, and why some friendships shift and grow with us while others break apart or fall away. WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE was always intended to be suspenseful but rooted in the complexities of long-term friendships. The secret game the characters play, called the Circus, was a way to upend stereotypes about how women behave and explore the tensions that can arise when you throw ambition and competition into the mix. 

Q: The novel spans twenty years, following characters who have grown and changed. How did you capture that passage of time while keeping the tension taut and the pace moving quickly? 

So much is honed in revision, and I really had to keep revising until I found the right balance between the present-day thrill of the Circus and the secrets the characters buried when they were undergrads. I also had some very patient writer friends who read countless drafts, as well as agents and a publisher who gave me such thoughtful notes. Listening to what trusted readers say inevitably makes a book better! 

Q: This book portrays the power dynamics of elite institutions and old friendships. Did your experiences at Harvard influence how you approached that world? 

Absolutely. When I arrived at Harvard, I felt really unprepared and found it a little overwhelming. Now I can see how much I gained from being there, but what I appreciate the most are the friends from that time who have stayed close through the years. Part of the fun of this book was revisiting those memories, but I also love hearing what readers have to say. Everyone comes to this book with different associations and understandings of what an institution like Harvard is like, and it’s been interesting to have conversations about what is important to preserve and protect and what feels stuck in the past.

Q: Female friendship (especially among high achievers) can be both deeply supportive and quietly competitive. How did you navigate writing that complexity? 

I think this is a tension many of us can identify with. The women in the book are outwardly successful—a NYC political figure, a corporate marketing exec with a happy family, a rising professor, etc.—but each character’s life is more complicated than it looks, which Sara discovers over the course of the book. I wanted to capture a moment in midlife when things might not have turned out as expected, and these characters are starting to reflect on their choices, especially when friends seem to be enjoying more momentum in their careers and relationships. The game they play became a great way to dial up that competition and play with the different ways these characters deal with that kind of pressure. 

Q: Before becoming a novelist, you had a legal career at Google and in international law. What inspired you to make the leap from running international legal departments to writing psychological thrillers? 

I feel lucky to have landed in Silicon Valley when I did; the products and services we were offering created novel legal questions, which is a great place to be as a lawyer. But over time, I started writing as a way of reconnecting with something more creative. I wound up working on a different novel (that will stay buried forever), but finishing it gave me the confidence to take writing more seriously. 

Q: How did your legal background shape your approach to plotting a mystery? And your writing process?

Lawyers are really good at asking “what if?” We’re taught from 1L year to push on hypotheticals and to look for exceptions that break the rule. Thinking through strange and unexpected corner cases turned out to be really good training for coming up with unexpected plot twists! I’m very much an outliner, which is something that feels necessary to me for a thriller. I always want the ending to deliver, and it’s hard to do that if I don’t have some sense of the destination before I set out on the journey. My goal is to always make a reader feel like the ending is surprising but inevitable. 

Q: What was the most surprising part of the publishing process for you, as someone entering the literary world from tech and law? 

Traditional publishing works at such a different speed and cadence than the tech industry. Once a book is sold, it’s not uncommon for that book to hit bookstore shelves a year or eighteen months later. There are good reasons for this, including the time it takes for editors and authors to absorb and edit a full manuscript, but this definitely required a change in mindset and a willingness to shift to other projects while you’re waiting for notes or the next round of proofs to come back. 

Q: Who are some writers or storytellers who have influenced you?

Hanya Yanagihara’s A LITTLE LIFE really informed the story that I wanted to tell. Another writer whom I really admire is Mohsin Hamid. We were law school classmates, and he was (and is) clearly so brilliant. His second book, THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST, impressed with how much it achieves through what is essentially a monologue. And I read Shirley Jackson novels and short stories when I’m looking for good examples of how to build suspense. I’m amazed at how relevant THE LOTTERY still is in reminding us how easily violence can be normalized and how dangerous blind conformity can be. 

Q: Without giving too much away—are you drawn to writing more in the psychological thriller space, or do you see yourself exploring other genres in the future? 

The next book is underway and also a suspense/thriller, but I’m hoping the book after that will let me explore another genre. At the same time, thrillers are so much fun to write, so it’s hard to imagine that I won’t come back to them in the future!