Jessica Guerrieri
Jessica Guerrieri (pronounced grrr-air-eee) is a writer and novelist who lives in Northern California with her husband and three daughters. With a background in special education, Jessica left the field to pursue a career in writing and raise her children. With over a decade of sobriety, she is a fierce advocate for addiction recovery.
Her award-winning debut book club novel is Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.
My Q&A with the author:
How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?Visit Jessica Guerrieri's website.
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea sets the tone before the first page. The cover’s striking image—water as both refuge and threat—mirrors the novel’s emotional stakes. The title speaks to being trapped between two impossible choices, something my protagonist, Leah, knows all too well. On the surface, she has it all: a handsome husband, three daughters, and a fresh start in a sleepy coastal town. But beneath that facade, she’s quietly unraveling—gripping tightly to the illusion of control, one drink at a time.
The "devil" can be read as addiction, guilt, or the crushing expectations of motherhood. The “deep blue sea” is both literal and symbolic: the beach town where Leah lives and surfs, and the murky depths of her own emotional landscape. It also hints at the secret she’s keeping from the O’Connor family—one that shadows her every move. And Leah’s not the only one caught in this tide. Both Christine and Amy find themselves navigating impossible choices of their own, their quiet crises rippling beneath the surface until they can no longer be ignored.
How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?
Not surprised at all. My teenage journals are packed with poetry and emotional angst—raw, unfiltered expressions of someone already trying to escape herself. That deep ache to numb, to disappear, to feel something other than what I was feeling—it was always there. So no, it isn’t remotely surprising that drugs and alcohol eventually appealed to me. What would surprise my younger self is that I survived long enough to write about it—and that I found a way to turn all that pain into something honest, and healing.
Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?
Both are equally hard—but for different reasons. They’re the parts of the story I spent the most time with, and they carry the most weight. The beginning has to earn the reader’s trust and attention from the very first page. I experimented with several different openings, including a flashback to when Leah first met her husband. Ultimately, I wanted to anchor the reader in the emotional undercurrent of her life, not just the chronology. Getting the hook right took time, revision, and a willingness to throw out what wasn’t working—even when it had been there from the start.
The ending was its own kind of reckoning. I made a profound change there, one that my editor gently but wisely guided me toward. I had to let go of the ending I thought the story needed and instead land in a place that felt earned, honest, and emotionally true.
So while I may have revised the beginning more often, it was the ending that required the biggest leap of faith.
Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?
Leah isn’t me—but we’ve definitely walked the same roads. I’m in recovery, too, and I wrote parts of this novel while still grieving and raw. So while the specifics of her story are fictional, the emotions behind them are deeply real. I poured the sharp edges of mylived experience into her—not to write a memoir in disguise, but to offer a story that feels lived-in and unflinching.
Leah is messier than I am, more secretive, more self-destructive. But I understand her. I love her. And I wrote her to reflect what it means to want desperately to be a good mother, even when you don’t yet know how to be good to yourself. Like me, Leah is also privileged in many ways. That mattered to me. I wanted to show that addiction doesn’t always look like rock bottom from the outside—it can exist even when all the ingredients for a perfect life seem to be in place.
Her obsession with pointing the finger is something I was guilty of in addiction. That used to be me. Thankfully, it isn’t anymore. Sadly, I also didn’t inherit her bohemian surfer vibe. But the internal battles? Those, I know by heart.
What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?
A local artist, Emily Dilbeck, was my creative muse for this book. She introduced me to her materials and process, and I was struck by how closely her approach to making art mirrored my own writing practice—intuitive, layered, and often born from emotion rather than logic. Watching her work reminded me that creativity doesn’t always have to begin with a plan; sometimes it starts with a feeling.
Music was another major influence. I had a very specific playlist I listened to on repeat while writing this novel. Songs like "Coastline" by Hollow Coves, "Exile" by Taylor Swift and Bon Iver, "Song for Zula" by Phosphorescent, "Ophelia" by The Lumineers, and "Wildfire" by Cautious Clay helped me stay emotionally tethered to the story’s tone and rhythm. Each track became a kind of emotional shorthand for the scenes I was writing.
I also took two writing retreats to Half Moon Bay to immerse myself in the world of the book. The first was in 2020, during lockdown, when the idea had just begun to form. I asked my husband if he could hold down the fort with our young kids while I escaped to the coast for two days to write. The second was years later, for my final round of edits before the manuscript went to print. That time, I brought along one of my closest friends—also a writer—and we worked side by side, talking through scenes and soaking up the atmosphere of the very town that inspired the novel’s setting. The coast gave me space to listen to myself, and in many ways, the story was born there.
--Marshal Zeringue