*This interview includes spoilers for Jeneva Rose’s The Perfect Divorce*
When Jeneva Rose isn’t doing her signature twirl on social media, she’s hard at work creating an empire. The author has been keeping fans on the edge of their seat with her thrillers that are so bloody good it’s turned the author into a #1 New York Times bestseller thanks to her latest book, The Perfect Divorce. The twisty follow up to The Perfect Marriage, brings fans back into the life of Sarah Morgan 10 years after the end of the first novel. Just when she thought everything was going well, she finds out her husband cheated on her. And the powerhouse lawyer also has to deal with a sudden unraveling of her past that may come back to haunt her.
Unlike Sarah, Jeneva doesn’t have to worry about her past. In actuality, she’s looking towards the future. As the author continues to grow her fanbase with gripping stories and fun TikToks of her sneaking into bookstores around the country to secretly sign her books, she’s also getting ready to grow her family, while also getting started on a new story that fans will no doubt be excited about.
Cosmopolitan chatted with Jenever prior to the release of The Perfect Divorce to talk all about her journey as a writer, what fans can expect next in Sarah Morgan’s story, and how she’s bridged two of her favorite worlds to become the superstar she is now.
I’m really curious about your recent videos where you’re sneaking into bookstores and signing books. It seems like you’re wearing two different hats nowadays: author and social media coordinator. How did that get started?
I definitely agree. It honestly came about because I couldn’t believe my books were in Target stores, and I signed them, and I was like, I don’t know if they care if I sign them or not, but I want to. My whole thing is no book left unsigned. I just started, my husband would film it, and then people love seeing it. They immediately sell out wherever I go. Now there are people literally parodying me on Tiktok and it’s them being so over the top, but it’s hilarious. I feel like I have to amp it up a little more, because then my parody is funnier than mine, and I can’t have that happen.
The title of author has certainly changed with social media, especially TikTok where BookTok is so huge.
Before I was an author, I always wanted it to be entertaining. I don’t just want to be the little paragraph at the back of the book with a staged photo of myself, I want readers to get to know me. I came from working in social media and digital marketing prior to becoming an author, so I always knew that was going to be a part of who I was.
I think it’s more fun where readers get to know me, because then they pick out things in my books that they would not have like my humor, Easter eggs of things I’ve said or done on social media or whatever it may be. It’s a lot of fun to feel like they know me a little better while they’re reading my work, because it is coming from my brain.
Your books are so fascinating because your characters aren’t inherently good or evil. There’s both sides to everyone in your stories, which makes for rooting for or against them very interesting. I bet your Google search history is fascinating.
Everyone is probably in the gray area. You can be a little more good than a little more evil, but we all do some things wrong. We do some things right. Obviously, my characters that are bad, I’m amping up the things that are wrong. I always want my characters to be fleshed out where you can root for them, but then secretly be like, I should not be rooting for this person for some reason.
I always say that I like to keep my NSA agent on their toes by searing things like, “You know how to get rid of a dead body,” and then, “How to bake a cake,” so they know I’m normal.
Sarah Morgan is such a fascinating character. She is a person who is constantly in survival mode, even though she really shouldn’t have to be. But then she has these things keep happening for her that she constantly has to go back to this other side of herself.
She definitely has her own moral code. She abides by what she thinks is right. And for this was really fun to write in The Perfect Divorce. I know you’re in her head, but I talk in the sequel about compartmentalization, which is what people that have extreme personality disorders can do. It’s why they can murder someone and then go to work the next day and be chatting with coworkers and smiling. And she really did that in The Perfect Marriage, whereas in The Perfect Divorce, this was my time to allow the reader to get closer to her and she allowed them to get more in her head. You saw more of her thought process throughout while she’s still trying to convince herself that she is doing everything she can to protect herself and her daughter. She sees the worst case scenario, whereas a lot of people would be like, If we do divorce, yes, this is going to be terrible for this reason, but we’ll work through it and there’s the legal side of the system to help. But Sarah sees worst case scenario and she’s in survival mode before she even needs to there.
‘The Perfect Divorce’ by Jeneva Rose
Motherhood has also changed her a lot in The Perfect Divorce.
I remember going through the editorial process and an editor being like, This is not what she would do. And I’m like, No, she would. With one of the twists where she’s actually helping someone, it’s that motherly side that has softened her. She does think about not hurting people who have not wronged her, unless it’s a casualty in the battle. She really thought Kelly Summers had killed Bob’s brother, but really, you find out in this one that she hadn’t. And so she’s thinking, All right, it’s the greater good here. This was the greater evil.
How do you decide how much you want a character to know and not know? Especially when jumping around different POVs, it’s very fascinating what gets told to the reader along the way and when.
When I write my books, I try to always end a chapter where you want to get back to that character. I think about laying these bread crumbs down at the appropriate times. Also, a lot of what the characters say have double meaning. When you read one of my books back, you’ll realize what they really meant when you know the ending. It may not seem so nefarious the first time around, unless you kind of know character.
I think it’s more easy to pinpoint a lot of Sarah Morgan’s nefariousness and the things she says should be taken the way that they’re said, not giving her the benefit of the doubt. The reader at this point knows her and she’s going to do what’s best for her.
Did you already know that you wanted to work on The Perfect Divorce after The Perfect Marriage?
For all of my books, I typically always have an idea to continue the story. I knew how I was going to open up the sequel. I always knew that third set of DNA was a loose end, but I did not want to write The Perfect Divorce until I knew I had it. I knew I did not want the, She shouldn’t have wrote a sequel or It’s not as good as the first. I needed Sarah’s life to continue and for more stakes to be there. I could have written it earlier, but I was like, Nope, not until I know it’s going to be worth it for me to write. I don’t want to put out a story to capitalize on it. I want to be proud of it.
You mention in the acknowledgements that Sarah’s story is not over. How do you handle the pressure from the public, especially as a lot of authors release books faster than ever before?
I knew that her story wasn’t over. I could potentially just make it a trilogy and be done, or continue for a few more books, depending on which way I want to do it that would bring the entire story kind of full circle. And I know there’s that pressure now because I put that in there. People that read the early ARC are like, Oh my god, she had the best twist in the acknowledgements.
I actually like a little pressure, because then I can add it to my slate of books. But I could kind of get annoyed by people asking about it at times. They’ll be like, When’s your next book coming out? when this one was released two days ago. I’ve been releasing two to three books a year now, but I would like to probably slow that down, because it’s a lot.
You’re actually not the first author I’ve talked to who has said that.
Before, you couldn’t put out more than a book a year, and even that was fast. I actually think it comes down to authors being closer to their readers with social media platforms. Now we can write in different genres because we can tell our readers what’s different about it versus before where they would depend on the marketing to ensure you’re educating the reader. I think that’s what’s really changed, is just the explosion of social media and then TikTok obviously helped that even further.
Is it also strange to be recognized in public?
It definitely is. I can remember, my first tour was for One of Us is Dead three years ago. My average attendance for that was about 40 people. For The Perfect Divorce, I have events or venues that are sold out up to 800, so there’s been this explosion there too. Rather than it just being a book that you read and you put it on your shelf, it’s also become this experience where people want it to look good too. They want to recommend it to friends. It’s not so much a solo activity. It’s more of like, let’s talk about it and I want to meet the author. It’s become more of a full package entertainment thing that’s beyond the pages.
Katherine Hannah
How do you keep yourself excited for what you’re working on next?
I won’t write a book until I can summarize it in a sentence or two and I become obsessed with it. I need to tell that story and I’m thinking about it all the time. I write very quickly, within a few months after I’ve kind of prepped for it. I’m a binge-writer in that sense. When I’m in my little writing cave getting sucked in the story, it makes me feel like a reader will equally be sucked in. If I get bored with the story, then that’s when I know something’s going wrong. I need to change something, because if I’m not liking this, a reader is not going to.
Who are you currently reading to keeping yourself inspired?
There’s a lot of authors I like and I read a wide variety of genres, but my main ones are probably like thriller and romance. For thrillers, I love Liv Constantine, Peter Swanson, Karen Slaughter. Romance it’s Abby Jimenez, Colleen Hoover, Emily Henry. There’s some other genres I dabble into. I am always looking for a unique concept and characters that I can fall in love with that they leave the page with me as I’m thinking about them. Books that keep the pages turning because I can’t put them down. I’ll read a book if I’ve never heard of the author, just because the concept is so interesting, like John Marrs. He’s got such interesting concepts. I’m always excited for his books.
We obviously know that Sarah’s story isn’t done, but is there anything else on the horizon?
I have The Girl I Was, which was a previously published title, coming out from MIRA in July. It’s completely revamped, a bunch of new chapters in there, so I’m very excited about that book. And then I have Dating After the End of the World, which is a post-apocalyptic enemies-to-lovers, zombie romance novel that comes out in September. That one I’m very excited about, because it is a mash up of so many genres, and I’m working on a sequel to it!
The Perfect Divorce, by Jeneva Rose is available now. To order the book, click on the retailer of your choice:
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