Q&A with Lyn Liao Butler

 

 

Lyn Liao Butler is the author of the new novel What Is Mine. Her other novels include Someone Else's Life. She lives in New York and in Hawaii.

 

Q: What inspired you to write What Is Mine, and how did you create your characters Hope and Tessa?

 

A: My thriller mind turned a chance encounter with a nice couple who fell in love with our son into a “what if” scenario, where they came back and took him away with the lure of a dog. And that's how What Is Mine came about.

 

I wanted it to be from the POV of a guardian, not the parent, and that was how Hope was born.

 

And Tessa is modeled after a woman I know who takes my yoga classes. She is nothing like Tessa, thank goodness, but she is a really nice person and we were joking one day that it's the nice ones you have to watch out for. And I told her I was using her as the inspiration for Tessa.

 

Q: How was the novel's title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: This was one of the titles in contention for my previous thriller, Someone Else’s Life. When it came time to title this one, I realized it works for this book too and my editor agreed right away. 

 

Q: The writer Hank Phillippi Ryan called the book a “gripping page-turner about family and obsession and, most terrifying, a tale of how far people will push to get what they want.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I am flattered by Hank's words and I think it is pretty spot on!

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?

 

A: I wanted to show two sides of drug addiction - how someone could be trying to get better, or it could make them do terrible things. At the heart, it's about the love for a little boy, and the women who cared about him.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I'm working on another thriller, just finished an upmarket book like my first two books, and also on a rom-com.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: My family and I are officially splitting our time between New York and Kauai now!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Lyn Liao Butler.