Michelle Brandon is the author of the new novel Rush Week. Michelle Brandon is a pseudonym for the writer Eliza Knight, whose books include the novel Confessions of a Grammar Queen.
Q: What inspired you to write Rush Week, and why did you decide to write under the name Michelle Brandon?
A: I had been wanting to write a juicy suspense for quite some time, and when my agent told me there was an opportunity to work with my editor on a book, I jumped! We brainstormed the idea of a juicy scandalous book and Rush Week was born.
The genre and book are quite a bit different than my Eliza Knight titles, which are historical, so it felt very natural to market the book under a different name to differentiate between the two.
Q: The writer Julie Cantrell said of the book, “[T]his story pulls back the curtain on a secret world where the price of belonging can be more than these college girls ever bargained for.” What do you think of that description?
A: I think it’s incredibly accurate! One of the themes in the novel is performative behavior, but also secrets and lies. Each of the women presents themselves as one way, but if you peel back the layers you see a different side. And when they left college, they hoped to leave their mistakes behind.
And now they’re being blackmailed and threatened with those dark secrets being exposed.
Q: How would you describe the dynamics among your characters Taylor, Brooklyn, Annabelle, and Asana?
A: If it were a relationship status on social media their friendship would say: it’s complicated. They are very close, even giving their friendship a hashtag. But they also have secrets they keep from each other. And there is some serious backstabbing that breaks their friendship apart when they graduate.
But when they come back together five years later to find the person blackmailing them, they also hope to reconcile the past, and rebuild the friendships that once meant so much to them.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?
A: At its core this is a juicy, wild ride. It’s full of scandal, anti-heroines, girls behaving badly and drama. I want readers to enjoy the roller coaster, to set aside expectations and sink into this fictional, outrageous world.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I just finished the edits for Tradwife, my next Michelle Brandon novel, which releases in May 2026! Expect more drama and scandal and another wild, juicy ride!
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I love to hear from readers, and I love book clubs! If you have a book club that is reading Rush Week and you’d like me to join via Zoom for a chat, send me an email!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Eliza Knight.
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