Adriane Leigh: I Wasn’t Interested in Writing Saints
In this interview, author Adriane Leigh discusses the transition from self-published to traditionally published with her new novel, Society Women.
Adriane Leigh is a self-published, USA Today-bestselling author of over 30 thrillers, romance novels, and novellas. Her writing has appeared in Vogue and The Montreal Gazette, and she is the founder of RARE: Romance Author & Reader Events. She also hosts "The Rebel Artist" podcast. She lives on Lake Michigan with her family. For more on Adriane and her work, visit AdrianeLeigh.com, and follow her on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram.
In this interview, Adriane discusses the transition from self-published to traditionally published with her new novel, Society Women, her advice for other writers, and more.
Name: Adriane Leigh
Literary agent: Jill Marsal, Marsal Lyon Literary Agency
Book title: Society Women
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release date: March 24, 2026
Genre/category: Psychological thriller
Previous titles: The Influencer Series, Don’t Trust Her, The Guests
Elevator pitch: When Ellie is invited into an elite secret society for women, she discovers it isn’t a philanthropic club—it’s a revenge engine built to destroy powerful men who’ve escaped justice. And the woman pulling the strings has a connection to Ellie that could shatter everything she thought she knew. Now Ellie has to decide: protect the life she came from … or become the weapon the society needs.
What prompted you to write this book?
We live in a culture that performs accountability but rarely delivers it—especially when it comes to crimes against women. I kept thinking about the quiet rage that builds when justice doesn’t come. Not loud rage. Not viral outrage. The controlled, intelligent kind. The kind that organizes.
At the same time, I’ve always been fascinated by legacy—especially between mothers and daughters. We inherit more than eye color and bone structure. We inherit coping mechanisms. Silence. Anger. Beliefs about power. I wanted to explore what it would look like if a daughter discovered that the thing she feared most wasn’t a stranger … but her own bloodline.
So, Society Women became the collision of those ideas: systemic failure and generational inheritance.
It’s about women who refuse to stay victims. But it’s also about what happens when empowerment goes unchecked. I wasn’t interested in writing saints. I was interested in writing women who are intelligent, strategic, wounded—and capable of crossing lines they once swore they wouldn’t.
The truth is, I didn’t write this book to give answers. I wrote it because I wanted to sit inside the most uncomfortable question of all: If the system fails you … how far would you go to fix it?
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
Writing Society Women was such a smooth process—it took me only about eight weeks from idea to rough draft! I love the feeling when the writing process moves so quickly. I think that energy translates to the page and the reader picks up on it too. And once I submitted the rough draft, the e-book published about seven months later. That's a pretty quick turnaround for traditional publishing, and I’m so thankful my editor at HarperCollins could make that happen.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
Every step was a learning moment because it was my first time working with a large, traditional publisher. Working with the team at HarperCollins was a dream and really streamlined the publishing process. It was nice to have someone else making all the creative and marketing decisions after spending 12 years in the self-publishing world.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
When I began Society Women, I thought I was writing about a covert vigilante network and a daughter pulled into her mother’s dangerous ideology. I expected to explore power, secrecy, revenge. What I didn’t expect was how complicated the moral terrain would become once I sat inside these women’s motivations for long enough.
When you understand what someone has survived—when you fully inhabit their fear, their rage, their years of being dismissed—you start to see how vengeance can masquerade as healing. That was unsettling for me as a writer. I’d step away from a scene and think, Wait … am I agreeing with them?
It surprised me how easy it was to justify their actions on the page.
Writing this book forced me to confront how seductive righteousness can be—and how thin the line is between protecting women and becoming something just as dangerous as the men you’re hunting.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
What I hope readers get out of Society Women is discomfort. Not the kind that pushes them away—but the kind that makes them question their own reactions.
I want readers to feel the rush of watching powerful women take control in a world that often protects the wrong people. I want them to feel the satisfaction of justice being served, and then slowly realize they’re complicit in something darker. If readers close the book and ask themselves, Would I have joined them? Would I have justified it?, then I’ve done my job.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Don’t write to be liked. Write to be honest.
The moment you start softening your characters to make them more palatable—or shaping your plot around what you think will offend the fewest people—you lose the electricity that makes a story matter.
The books that stay with readers aren’t the safest ones. They’re the ones that take a stance. The ones that let a woman be ambitious without apologizing. The ones that refuse to tidy up the moral mess at the end.
Also—finish the book. Brilliance doesn’t live in half-drafted chapters and perfectly curated outlines. It lives in the messy middle where you’re convinced you’ve lost the plot and should probably quit. Push through that part. That’s where your voice sharpens.
Write the story that scares you a little. That’s usually the one worth finishing.
