Elle Marr Twists the Knife in 'The Lie She Wears'

Amazon Charts bestselling author Elle Marr joins Writer’s Voices to discuss her seventh and latest psychological thriller, The Lie She Wears. Set in Portland, Oregon, the story centers around a Chinese-American museum curator named Pearl Davis who receives a shocking letter from her recently deceased mother, Sally, confessing to murder. Soon after acquiring the letter, a body is discovered in Sally’s garden and as additional letters arrive, more human remains begin to appear. Pearl comes to understand that her mother’s dangerous secrets are now hers to carry alone. As Marr explains, “Pearl realizes she’s caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse. Someone is following in her mother’s footsteps and they’re getting closer… it really delves into how well we know the people we love and what happens when decades old secrets refuse to stay buried… I’m very, very excited for readers to discover it… and it’s got one of my favorite twists that I’ve ever written…”

While Marr always loved writing, she didn’t pursue it professionally until she was living in France and teaching English. From that point on, she learned the craft of storytelling by just doing it. “I learned by writing that first novel, and then ripping it apart and revising it for about three years before I finally said, ‘Ok. I should probably just let this lie…’ so I put it down, and I started writing another book which became my debut thriller, The Missing Sister… I also watched a lot of movies, to be honest. Movies and film are so excellent for story structure understanding because they are so precise in their beats… so if you don’t have the time ‘to read a 300-page novel,’ although you must read books to be a good writer… just watch your favorite movie and note the points at the 25% mark, 50% mark, 75% mark… they hit exactly what must happen for the character on that specific journey, so I did a lot of movie watching and craft book reading.”