Bonnie Jo Pierson is the author of the new novel What Happens in Idaho. She lives in Idaho.
Q: What inspired you to write What Happens in Idaho, and how did you create your characters Lili and Blake?
A: When my first baby was 14 days old, we moved away from family, and anything familiar, across the country to St. Louis where my husband entered the realm of medical school, leaving me at home to care for this infant.
I was blessed with a daughter who slept a lot, like six hours a day, 12 hours at night a lot. To pass the time, I went to the library and read stacks and stacks of books.
Until one fall day I told my husband, I wanted to make one of these magical things that transported me to different worlds. His response was, why don’t you? So, I opened my laptop and started writing.
I started with the gem of the idea…What if everything I hold dear was stripped from me? What type of woman would I become? Would I be able to find love again? I played on my fears and wrote myself to a happily ever after.
My husband is good with classic cars, tinkers with them all the time, and he’s now a doctor. So basically, I split him in two, and then made him fall in love with himself. It helped because the love I have for my husband translated into my characters.
Of course, they became uniquely themselves, with their own emotional wounds, and quirks, but it’s fun, in hindsight, to see what my subconscious did.
Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: This is a fun question. Over the years this novel has had several titles. It started as Seeking Sunrise…didn’t really fit. Then it went to and stayed as Fragments of a Life for a long time. Once again that title sounded more like a women’s fiction not a romance. I think it was Fragmented Life for a while and other renditions.
I was so fed up with trying to title this novel that when I sent it to my publisher, I threw What Happens in Idaho into my query. It was the first time I’d ever used that title. Turned out, they loved it, and it stuck.
I wrote this novel during the time I’d moved away. Idaho is playing in the cool evenings with my family, hiking to the creek with my sisters, working in the hot sun in my family garden…it’s picnics and sunsets, adventures and first loves. It is home.
Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Lili and Blake?
A: Lili and Blake have a little bit of the enemies to friends to lovers kind of relationship. At first, Lili is slightly jealous of Blake and his daughter, Maddie. They have the relationship she’d never been able to achieve with her mother.
Out of sheer loneliness, Lili begins to let Blake in, whereas Blake’s main goal is to ease Lili’s pain even if it’s just for her vacation. The chemistry between them is scalding hot. The slow burn just builds and builds until they finally give into it.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?
A: Love is the most powerful emotion, and I’m convinced it’s the most important one we feel.
The takeaway I want all readers to leave with is the afterglow of this key emotion that everyone needs in their life. If everyone loved their fellow men and women more, violent crime would disappear overnight. Love is the answer. I sing “All we need is love” from Moulin Rouge all the time.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m working on the second in the series for a book of mine that’s releasing in 2026. It’s a small-town romantic suspense. So, a change of pace for sure. And I’m plotting two other romcoms … one of which might take us back to Idaho.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I just love story. Devoting my life to telling stories is a pleasure I didn’t plan on having.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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