Dear Reader, Love Author: Robin Talley

Dear Reader,

“I can’t write a book about murder!”

That was my first reaction when the plot of Everything Glittered popped into in my mind.

By that point, I’d firmly settled on the book’s setting — a finishing school in Washington, D.C., during the Roaring 1920s, when Prohibition reigned and the prim, proper politicians’ daughters learning how to fill their destined roles as society wives would never do anything as scandalous as don beaded dresses or sneak out of their dorm rooms to visit speakeasies. I’d been doing research on the period for months. (And only 5 percent of that research had involved looking at pictures of sparkly headbands and flapper dresses. … OK, maybe 10 percent.)

I knew all about the main characters, too. A trio of best friends, all politicians’ daughters who’ve been raised to play their prim and proper roles, but whose feelings about each other are becoming more and complicated and confusing with every passing day. I knew their bonds would be tested again and again, as close friendships always are, particularly when there are three strong personalities involved. And I knew all the girls’ lives would be that much more complicated by the stresses of being queer in this time and place.

I remember the moment it first occurred to me to turn this story into a murder mystery. I was standing in my kitchen, in the middle of doing something completely unrelated to writing (that’s usually when the big ideas come; it’s very inconvenient), and I stopped what I was doing and stood there stock-still with a dish towel in my hand.

It was entirely ludicrous. I was sure of that much. It wasn’t as if I could take this story of complicated times and complicated relationships and add in murder, of all things.

Then I realized that was exactly what the story needed.

You see, I’m what’s known in writing circles as a planner. I like to figure out my books in detail before I write them, and even though I hadn’t yet started writing their story, I knew my fictional trio — Gertie, Clara, and Milly — very, very well.

They were smart. They were perceptive. They had plenty of experience sneaking around and going unnoticed. They knew how to fly under the radar, pretending they were nothing more than pretty, oblivious faces.

They were born detectives.

Suddenly, my characters had a purpose. And that purpose was a matter of life and death.

Now, Gertie, Milly, and Clara would spend their story hunting down a killer, risking their own lives in the process. They’d be plunged into a world that girls like them weren’t supposed to know existed. A world of bootleggers and criminals, and a corrupt law enforcement system that only cared about padding its own pockets — and a deeply underground yet resiliently thriving queer community. All of it within sight of the Capitol dome.

Everything Glittered is my eighth novel about queer teenagers. I’ve been in publishing for a decade, and in that time, I’ve written my share of coming out stories, but I’ve also written about Shakespeare-inspired queer teens outsmarting Shakespeare-inspired (possibly queer) ghosts. I’ve written about the Lavender Scare, and McCarthyism, and the dawn of the modern LGBT rights movement.

Now, I’ve written about aspiring flappers investigating a murder — and what it means to be queer in a time when that word meant something very different than it does today.

Reader, I can’t wait for you to get your hands on it.

Thank you so much for reading this story, and all our stories. We’re glad to have you in our world.

Murderously yours,

Robin