Sally Hepworth is the bestselling author of The Secrets of Midwives, The Things We Keep, The Mother's Promise, and The Family Next Door.Her new novel is The Mother-in-Law.
From Hepworth's Q&A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: How did you come up with the idea for The Mother-in-Law, and for your characters Lucy and Diana?--Marshal Zeringue
A: The idea came to me while hosting my in-laws, who stayed with us for six weeks following the birth of my third child.
On this particular trip, my (beloved) father-in-law had been pestering me continually about what my next book was about. Now, I didn’t know what my next book was going to be about, given the fact that I had just given birth! But he wouldn’t let it go.
Finally I told him, in jest: “I’m going to write about a woman who murders her father-in-law.” We laughed about it, but the more I thought about it, I decided it wasn’t a bad idea.
Still, I thought it would be an even better idea if I substituted Mother-in-Law for Father-in-Law. My father-in-law was bummed, because he was looking forward to his 15 minutes of fame, but...[read on]