Book Event: Mary Kubica’s Every Last Lie Book Tour

On Thusday, June 29th the Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati hosted Mary Kubica on her book tour for her most recent release, Every Last Lie…

I attended this event with my good friend, Jess, who was actually my house guest for the week on her trip to Ohio.  Jess is one of my few friends in real life that actually reads a good amount, so I knew she would be up to go with me.  She had actually never been to a book/author event before, but was looking up author events in her home state of Florida on the way home, so I think it’s safe to say she enjoyed herself.  I think I may have created a monster 🙂

Mary was extremely personable & friendly.  She arrived to the event early, but instead of waiting ‘behind the scenes’ for the event to start, she actually sat down in the audience and chatted with some of the attendees.  To me, this shows that Mary truly cares about her readers & how down to earth she is.  After the event officially started and Mary was introduced, she shared her journey to becoming a writer, gave some background on Every Last Lie, read an excerpt from the book, then opened up the floor to audience questions.  As per usual, I will share with you all what I learned…

Personal life…

» Mary actually attended college here in Ohio at Miami University (Oxford) majoring in History & American Literature.  She went on to be a high school history teacher.

» She lives in Chicago, which is where all of her books are set.

On her writing journey…

» She was a reader as a young child, but didn’t get the itch to write until she was middle grade aged.  She was taken with a story that her cousin wrote, and had an “ah-hah moment.”  She has been writing ever since.

»  Mary was very private and secretive about her writing.

»  In 2005, Mary became a stay at home mother.  She felt very isolated at home (like many stay at home parents) and started working on her book The Good Girl during this time.  She would write whenever she had downtime.

» It took her 5 years to write The Good Girl, which she finished in 2010.

» After finishing The Good Girl, Mary googled what to do with her book as she did not have any connections in the writing/publishing industry.

» Mary sent her first book off to 100 or so agents, only to be rejected by them all.  2 years later in 2012, an agent reached out to her after reading her book.  This agent offered some feedback, and was interested in representing her.

» “You just need to find that one person (agent) who loves your book as much as you do.”

» Her agent got her a two book publishing deal through Mira Books

»  After scoring her first publishing deal, she immediately began working on her second book, Pretty Baby. The writing process for Pretty Baby was much different from writing her first book.   There were deadlines & pressures that she never experienced before her book deal.  There wasn’t any particular inspiration behind her second book Pretty Baby, Mary joked that it was born more out of desperation.

» To Mary, the backwards R’s (found on The Good Girl, Don’t You Cry & Every Last Lie & the upside down A on Pretty Baby) have become trademarks of her books.  To her, they represent the fact that not everything is always as it seems.

On her writing process…

» Mary is not a plotter, she lets the story direct her.

» She loves putting all the puzzle pieces together while playing with the timelines & different POVs.

» Mary typically writes from beginning to end in one POV, then will go back and write the other POV(s).  She says this is how she writes all her books, one POV (beginning to end) at a time.

» Her favorite time to write is in the early mornings between 5-7am.  There are no distractions.  She also writes when her children are in school.

» Mary does not like to set daily word count goals, but rather likes to set monthly goals of where she wants to be with her current writing project.

On Every Last Lie…

»  ELL was inspired by a news article.

» She wrote all of Clara’s POV first, then went back and wrote Nick’s POV while weaving the stories together.

» She was nervous at first about the cover not having a face on it, as her previous three books did, but the publisher wanted to move away from the faces for this book so it would stand out.  Mary loves how it turned out & thinks the yellow is really attention grabbing.

On her upcoming books…

» She is currently editing her next book that is set to release next summer.  The title will be Eleven Days.  Part of the book is about a couple struggling with infertility, and the other part is about a 20 year old woman who lost her mother to cancer, but is starting to discover that her mother may not have been who she thought she was.

» Her proposal for her next project (book #6) was just approved.

I have read all of Mary’s books (aside from Every Last Lie) and would have to say that my favorite would have to be The Good Girl, followed by Pretty Baby and Don’t You Cry brings up the rear in third place.  HOWEVER if we are talking covers, the cover for Don’t You Cry is hands down my favorite Kubica book cover.

» You can read my review for Pretty Baby here → Book Review: Pretty Baby by Mary Kubica

» You can read my review for Don’t You Cry here → Book Review: Don’t You Cry by Mary Kubica

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Have you read any of Mary Kubica’s books?  If so, which is your favorite?

Have you read Every Last Lie already?  What did you think?

Comment below & let me know 🙂