Megan Abbott is the Edgar-winning author of the novels Beware the Woman, The Turnout, Give Me Your Hand, You Will Know Me, The Fever, Dare Me, The End of Everything, Bury Me Deep, Queenpin, The Song Is You and Die a Little.

Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Salon, the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, and The Believer. Her stories have appeared in multiple collections, including the Best American Mystery Stories of 2014 and 2016.

Q. Beware the Woman is getting rave early reviews. What can you tell us about it?

Megan: It’s about a woman, Jacy, newly married and newly pregnant and in that rapturous flush of romantic love, who takes a trip with her husband Jed to the beautiful, remote Upper Peninsula of Michigan to visit his father-in-law, the charming and welcoming Dr. Ash. After a brief health scare, Jacy’s pregnancy becomes a source of growing concern for Jed and his father. Jacy’s mom always told her “We all marry strangers” and as the trip continues, Jacy begins to realize how little she really knows about Jed’s complicated relationship with his father and the role it may play in their marriage.

Q. Your novels often explore the dark side of American girlhood. Is the same true with Jacy in Beware the Woman?

Megan: When I write, I’m most interested in the emotional life of women of all ages, especially the emotions that we’re encouraged to hide: messy feelings of anger, aggression, ambition, open desire, transgressive desire.  And with Jacy in Beware the Woman, I found myself diving into my biggest fears about the body and control, and about the masks we all wear in relationships, about the fear of betrayal, of domination. The way women experience these fears and how they reckon with them.

I always remember, since I was a girl, seeing the Gavin De Becker on TV talking about the “gift of fear,” how women must listen to those feelings, the instinct that they’re in danger. I thought so much about that when writing Beware the Woman. I think many writers, especially in our genre, write about what scares us and Jacy’s plight taps into so many of my deepest fears.

Q. What are your thoughts on the future of the crime fiction and suspense genres?

Megan: I’m really excited about it. I’ve never felt more energized by the books coming out now, both the brilliant recent debuts (Angie Kim, Margot Douaihy, Eli Cranor, Wanda Morris) and these surging new voices. It’s finally feeling like progress is being made in terms of diversity of all kinds and that has yielded thrilling and distinctive work. Nothing feels formulaic, not the plots, not the points of view, not the worlds the books bring us into, not the issues they raise. In fact, it’s like the genre is being expanded, overturned and reinvented. It’s exhilarating.

Q. What are some of your favorite thrillers? What are you reading now?

Megan: Too many to name! But some ones I’ve loved lately are Jordan Harper’s Everybody Knows, William Boyle’s Shoot the Moonlight Out, Laura Lippman’s Prom Mom, which comes out in July, and Where Are the Children Now?, which is Alafair Burke’s stunning sequel to the Mary Higgins Clark classic.

Q. What are you working on next?

Megan: I’ve been writing a lot in TV/film these last few years. I’m going to be adapting Beware the Woman for a feature film—more on that soon! I’m also adapting one of my favorite movies, Todd Haynes’s SAFE, for television (that’s a dream project a few years in the making). And, yes, a new novel in there somewhere!