What They Don’t Know
by Susan Furlong
May 9 – June 3, 2022 Virtual Book Tour
A picture-perfect suburban life fractures. . . and a darker reality bubbles beneath the surface.
Mona Ellison’s life is as perfect as the porcelain dolls lined up on her shelves. She has a successful husband, a loving son, a beautiful home, and a supportive group of girlfriends ever ready for their weekly wine night.
But when Mona’s son gets entangled with the wrong crowd and runs away from home, her blissful suburban world begins to unravel. She tells her friends that boys will be boys, that he’ll be back as soon as his money runs dry . . . but deep down she knows there’s something else going on.
Then the police show up at Mona’s door. A young girl has turned up dead in their quiet town, and her missing son is the prime suspect.
Determined to reunite with her son and prove his innocence, Mona follows an increasingly cryptic trail of clues on social media, uncovering a sinister side of suburbia and unveiling lies and betrayal from those she trusted most. And as Mona spirals further from her once cozy reality, a devastating revelation shatters everything she thought she knew. Now the only thing she’s sure of is that she can’t trust anyone . . . not even herself.
With unrelenting psychological suspense and a wicked twist, What They Don’t Know marries small-town thriller and domestic mystery—suburban paranoia at its best.
What They Don’t Know Book Love:
“Part domestic thriller, part small-town mystery, What They Don’t Know is everything suspense fans want: characters who’ll make you think twice, a subversive plot, and pages that seemingly turn themselves the deeper you get into the story. In this portrait of suburban life tinged with malice and intrigue, paranoia lurks just around the corner. Read it at night. Don’t plan on sleep.” (Tosca Lee, NYT bestselling author of The Line Between)
Book Details:
Genre: Suspense
Published by: Seventh Street Books
Publication Date: May 17th, 2022
Number of Pages: 286
ISBN: 1645060403 (ISBN13: 9781645060406)
Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
Read an excerpt:
It was the last Tuesday of the month, our normal book club night, and we were gathered at my house—Selma, Alice, Tara, and me—settled in the living room, Moroccan rug plush beneath us, immersed in the decor’s eclectic mix of whimsy and Old-World aesthetic. This would be our last book club meeting, but it was more than that, really. It was a pulled thread in the carefully woven tapestry of our friendships that had begun in college and endured careers, weddings, our first-borns, and remained constant through affairs, divorces, and much worse …
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Excerpt from What They Don’t Know by Susan Furlong. Copyright 2022 by Susan Furlong. Reproduced with permission from Susan Furlong. All rights reserved.
Author Bio:
Susan Furlong is the author of eleven novels including SHATTERED JUSTICE, a New York Times Best Crime Novel of the Year. She also contributes, under a pen name, to the New York Times bestselling Novel Idea series. Her most recent novel, WHAT THEY DON’T KNOW, has been praised by reviewers as an engrossing and delightfully creepy read. She resides in Illinois with her husband and children.
Catch Up With Susan Furlong:
www.SusanFurlong.com
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Twitter – @Furlong_Sue
Facebook – @SusanFurlongAuthor
Q&A with Susan Furlong
What was the inspiration for this book?
One of our daughters loves horror movies. Me, not so much. But in the interests of spending time with her, I watched a creepy flick about a haunted doll. It scared the bejeebies out of me! I couldn’t get to sleep that night, and sometime in the early morning hours, a story sparked in my mind. It started with a plot twist and went from there. By the next day, I had a basic outline for What They Don’t Know.
What has been the biggest challenge in your writing career?
Finding balance between writing time and life’s other commitments. Anyone who has a job knows it’s difficult to juggle family and work but writing presents unique challenges. Creativity takes time, and I’ve never been one to be able to write in small spurts. Family always takes priority, but to make my deadlines, I need several hours each day of uninterrupted writing time. It’s difficult to fit it all in sometimes.
What do you absolutely need while writing?
Quiet time, my laptop and snacks. I try to snack healthy, but when a deadline looms, I resort to SweeTARTS and lots of iced tea to get me through.
Do you adhere to a strict routine when writing or write when the ideas are flowing?
A routine. If I waited for ideas to flow, I’d never write anything.
Who is your favorite character from your book and why?
Definitely Mona, my protagonist. She’s relatable and compelling, but unpredictable. She’ll keep readers on the edge, wondering what’s next.
Tell us why we should read your book.
Read What They Don’t Know if you want to be entertained by a complex story with a final twist that will leave you gobsmacked.
Give us an interesting fun fact or a few about your book?
One aspect of the story involves social media stalking. During research, I spent a lot of
time on Instagram and picked up my own social media stalker. Not to worry, though, that issue was easily resolved with just a couple clicks. Unfortunately, for Mona, her stalker was a little harder to shake.
Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
To those who have supported my work throughout the years, thank you. I hope you enjoy this book, too. I’ve worked hard to make it a good story.
Tell us a little about yourself and your background?
I’ve always wanted to be a writer, except when I was seven and my big dream was to become Wonder Woman and fly an invisible plane. But writing is just as fun and not quite as dangerous. Getting published is another story. It took me almost twenty years to sell my first piece of fiction. In the interim, I worked as a freelance writer, created website content, compiled medical reference books, even wrote instruction pamphlets like the ones that come with assemble-it-yourself furniture. Not glamorous stuff. Now, I feel incredibly blessed to be able to write and share my stories.
What’s next that we can look forward to?
My next book, The Killer’s Wife, will be out sometime in 2023. I’m writing it from two points of view: a serial killer’s wife, and her parole officer. It’s a fun story—really fun! —and just a wee bit creepy.
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GIVEAWAY:
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