Jessica Brody

Jessica Brody is the author of two adult books from St. Martin’s Press (Love Under Cover and The Fidelity Files) and two forthcoming young adult books from Farrar, Straus & Giroux (The Karma Club and My Life Undecided).

The Fidelity Files is now in development as a television series from the producer of the Academy Award-winning Best Picture, Crash.

From a Q & A at Brody's website:

How did you get the idea for The Fidelity Files?

The concept for this book came to me when I was attending a happy hour at a bar in Los Angeles. I was there with a friend and a bunch of her colleagues, some of which were married. I found myself curiously observing the interactions between the single and non-single co-workers as their behaviors gradually declined from professional to something else entirely. Something hardly capable of being described as “appropriate.”

Some of the disturbing things that I witnessed as I watched alcohol cloud people’s judgment and the bar environment offset any trained workplace behavior upset me on a profound level. I secretly wished that someone would tell the “conveniently” absent significant others about what their husbands/wives/boyfriends/girlfriends/fiancés really did while attending these “obligatory” and supposedly “uneventful” work-related functions. But I certainly wasn’t going to be the one to do it. I was brave enough to think it…but not exactly brave enough to go knocking on people’s doors with bad news. You know what people tend to do to “the messenger.”

So instead I created a character whose job and purpose in life was to do just that. To reveal the truth to anyone who wanted to know. To knock on all the doors that I never had the courage to knock on. An invincible superhero-esque woman whose quest is to fight against the evils of infidelity. But of course, she soon finds out…she’s not as invincible as she once thought.

In a sense, the “Ashlyn” character of the book is the mask that I always wanted to wear. A façade behind which I could hide as I watched my fantasies of exposing the truth come to life on the page. I believe we are all afraid of feeling vulnerable on some level. We all fear the painful emotions that come with betrayal. My greater purpose in writing The Fidelity Files was to explore these fears so that I could offer a message of faith and hope despite them. Because if someone who makes their living as a fidelity inspector can believe in love despite everything she’s seen, it shouldn’t be...[read on]

Watch Brody's award-winning book trailers and visit her online at www.jessicabrody.com.

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--Marshal Zeringue