Eve Chase: Stories Unfold as You Write Them
In this interview, bestselling author Eve Chase discusses how Joan Didion’s estate sale helped inspire her new mystery novel, The Secret Thread.
Eve Chase is a million-copy, internationally bestselling British novelist who writes rich, layered, and suspenseful novels, steeped with secrets, unforgettable characters, and settings. Her previous novels include The Midnight Hour, a Richard and Judy Book Club pick in the U.K.; The Birdcage; The Daughters of Foxcote Manor, which was a Sunday Times top 10 bestseller and Richard and Judy Book Club pick in the U.K.; The Wildling Sisters, longlisted for the HWA Gold Crown Award; and Black Rabbit Hall, winner of Paris's Saint-Maur en Poche prize for Best Foreign Fiction. Find her on Substack, and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.
In this interview, Eve discusses how Joan Didion’s estate sale helped inspire her new mystery novel, The Secret Thread, her advice for other writers, and more.
Name: Eve Chase
Literary agent: Stacy Testa, Writers House
Book title: The Secret Thread
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release date: June 30,2026
Genre/category: Mystery
Previous titles: The Midnight Hour, The Daughters of Foxcote Manor, The Birdcage, The Wildling Sisters and Black Rabbit Hall.
Elevator pitch: When New York interiors grande dame and style icon Mimi Mott decides to auction off her legendary estate and tell her life story through her possessions, old family secrets threaten to unravel—and an estranged sister in England remembers things very differently.
What prompted you to write this book?
It was the late Joan Didion’s poignant estate sale back in 2022 that first gave me the idea of telling a life story through auction lots and personal possessions. I remember obsessing over her blank notebooks—Joan’s notebooks!—and her napkins, Céline sunglasses and watching the online bidding grow frenzied and thinking, wow, if only each object could tell its story. I kept circling the idea that possessions somehow retain traces of their owners, and that they can be windows into a private inner world.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
Some ideas percolate for a while before I can find a way into a story that might make a decent novel. This one only came fully into focus once I’d nailed the character of Mimi Mott and her sister, Pamela. Although in some ways The Secret Thread is tightly structured—the chapters set in the past all lead with an auction lot item—it’s a character-led plot, so I had to know Mimi and Pamela inside out. The shorter answer is that it took about 18 months to write, but I’d been thinking about it for a year or two before that.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
Sometimes a cracking book title is there from the start, which is super helpful. But my working title for this story flipped every few weeks, and, frustratingly, I didn’t think of The Secret Thread until quite late in the day. By then it felt perfect (well, of course!) and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it earlier.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
I started writing The Secret Thread slowly, too slowly, finding my way, worrying it might not work, until I got about halfway through. Then magically, something crystallized, and the rest of the novel rushed out in a glorious flow. Because of my woeful pace at the start, I still had to write seven days a week for months to finish it. Not ideal, but it did mean complete creative immersion: the membrane between me and the story was tissue thin. I loved being in my writing shed, working away on it, feeling like the characters were in there with me, peering over my shoulder.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I hope they’re thoroughly, happily lost in the story for a few hours, and that the characters hunker down in their hearts too.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Once you have a first draft down, however flawed, you can shape it, rewrite it, and turn it into something good. Before that, it’s just another idea knocking around your head. So much about writing fiction is actually doing it, one sentence then another, amassing a great lump of words to carve into better shape. And, in my experience, stories unfold as you write them. The physical writing process itself unlocks the plot, so keep going.
