Joy Fielding: I Always Know the Beginning and the End of My Novels
In this interview, author Joy Fielding discusses the surprising humor in her new thriller, Jenny Cooper Has a Secret.
Joy Fielding is the New York Times bestselling author of Someone Is Watching, Now You See Her, Still Life, Mad River Road, See Jane Run, and other acclaimed novels. She divides her time between Toronto and Palm Beach, Florida. Learn more at JoyFielding.com, and follow her on Instagram.
In this interview, Joy discusses the surprising humor in her new thriller, Jenny Cooper Has a Secret, her desire to see older characters across all genres, and more.
Name: Joy Fielding
Literary Agent: Tracy Fisher at WME
Book title: Jenny Cooper Has a Secret
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release date: August 5, 2025
Genre: Psychological suspense
Previous titles: The Housekeeper; Cul-de-sac; All the Wrong Places; The Bad Daughter; She’s Not There; Someone Is Watching; Shadow Creek; Now You See Her; The Wild Zone: Still Life; Charley’s Web; Heartstopper; Mad River Road; Puppet; Lost; Whispers and Lies; Grand Avenue; The First Time; Missing Pieces; Don’t Cry Now; Tell Me No Secrets: See Jane Run; Good Intentions; The Deep End; Life Penalty; The Other Woman: Kiss Mommy Goodbye; Trance; The Transformation; The Best of Friends. Plus Home Invasion, a novella designed to encourage adult literacy.
Elevator pitch: A 92-year-old woman suffering from dementia claims to be a serial killer.
What prompted you to write this book?
As far as what prompted me to write this book, I’ve always enjoyed writing suspense, and I thought it would be an interesting twist on the genre—as well as high time—to have both the protagonist and the villain of the novel be women over the age of 70 (and one of them over 90!). Older women have been largely ignored in suspense fiction—all fiction, for that matter—and I thought it was time for our voices to be heard. I also just found the whole topic of memory and how it defines us to be a fascinating subject to explore.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
It generally takes about two years from the time I conceive an idea until it ends up in print. It’s about a year from the time I get an idea until the book is finished, and then another year—sometimes longer—to go through the editing and other publishing-related issues. As to whether the idea for this book changed during this process, the answer is that while the basic idea didn’t change, the manuscript itself underwent a number of changes. I did some restructuring to heighten the suspense in the first half of the book, and I made a number of cuts to dialogue that were too repetitious. I also made a significant change regarding something that happens to a secondary character. But as I said, the basic idea remained the same.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
Frankly, I’m always a little surprised when an editor feels some changes are necessary to my books, especially involving structure, because I usually don’t let an editor see the manuscript before I’m pretty sure it’s perfect. But writers have editors for a reason, and I’m always willing to listen to advice that will improve the book. In the case of Jenny Cooper Has a Secret, my original editor felt that while the first half of the book contained plenty of drama, it needed more suspense, which she stressed was not the same thing, so she asked me to move some things around and to try to amp up the suspense in the first half. This involved a lot more work than I’m used to—and frankly, don’t particularly like. Restructuring is very hard because when you change one little thing, it changes everything that came before and after. It’s a lot of work! After I made the changes, the editor still felt I could do more, but I disagreed, and thankfully, my current editor agreed with me. Jenny Cooper is more a psychological page-turner than hard-core thriller.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
I believe it was Flannery O’Connor who once said that if the writer is never surprised, you can’t expect the reader to be surprised, so I look forward to the little surprises that come my way when I’m writing. I always know the beginning and the end of my novels and a few key things that have to happen along the way. I used to write a fairly detailed outline, and this is something I would still recommend to beginning authors. But the more books I write, the shorter my outlines get. As I said, I always know how my books will end, although I don’t always know precisely how. But in writing suspense, you have to know where you’re going to end up in order to build that suspense and everything has to be a little bigger than what came before. If you don’t know where you’re headed, you can’t do that, and you end up wandering all over the place, which just means an awful lot of rewriting. In Jenny Cooper, what surprised me was how funny the book turned out to be and how sympathetic the women were. I got very attached to these women, and actually found myself tearing up at one point. I didn’t expect that.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I hope that, above all, readers will just totally enjoy the book and find it impossible to put down. I also hope that readers will recognize themselves in the characters and care about their fates. I hope that they’ll realize that stories can still be written that are modern and new while featuring older protagonists.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
If I could share one piece of advice with other writers, it would be this: When telling the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, bring on the three bears! In other words, get to the interesting part of the story.
