I am so excited to welcome Jennifer Sadera to the blog today for her psychological suspense MAYBE YOU LIED! If you know me, you know I’m always fascinated by the choices authors make behind the scenes, and Jennifer made a bold one here, building this book around a male protagonist in a genre that so often centers women. Here’s Jennifer to tell us why, and how her own son ended up shaping the voice on the page.
I so enjoy This Cozy Chaos and look forward to reading this blog during those rare quiet moments. The affinity we share for family, adventure, and appreciation of the beauty in the everyday makes for a natural connection, so I was especially delighted to be asked to share with your readers thoughts from my latest psychological suspense, MAYBE YOU LIED.
Unlike most psych thrillers which feature female protagonists, I decided a young man should drive the narrative in MAYBE YOU LIED. After all, men have feelings too. And anyone raising a son knows young men can be especially tender-hearted.
I gave my protagonist, 21-year-old Will Lockhart, many challenges from page one. Having recently lost his mother in an automobile accident, he’s foundering, uncertain of where he fits into the world now that he’s on his own. His mother was his only living relative and he clings to his identity as a beloved son as tightly as he holds her memory deep inside himself. But the illusion of family unity shreds when he learns he’s been lied to since he was five years old.
What do you do when you discover your whole life is a lie and the one who deceived you from childhood was your own mother?
My hope is that this premise will appeal to readers no matter the sex of the protagonist, but that’s when my writer hat slipped and I donned my mom cap. Any author who is also a mother understands that so much of what motivates us is filtered through our past and the influence we exert on our children. I raised my daughter to be strong and independent because I grew up in an era when I felt discounted. I was praised as a child for my blond hair and sweet face. I never considered myself particularly smart or talented. Hard as it is to admit, I assumed the role of being docile and obedient because that’s what society valued in girls at that time. I didn’t want to raise my girl with the same diminished expectations. As a result, her nickname growing up was “Nails” because she was as hard as those metal spikes. Driven, athletic, determined.
My son was different. From the earliest age, he exhibited empathy and compassion that was preternatural. I embraced it, certain that he would mature into a competent, masculine man with an appealing soft side. And, to my delight, he has. But as he was growing up, I worried. Life has a way of chewing up and spitting out the tender among us. It can be especially difficult for a man to exhibit “feelings” and still retain value in society. It’s getting better as we morph into a more individualistic culture, but old notions can sometimes persist. It was within this parameter that Will was created.
What I love about making the main character male is that it challenged me to stretch my perceptions and writing ability. Relaying emotions and reactions from the perspective of the opposite gender was harder than I initially thought it would be. Critique group members would read a line and say, “I don’t think a guy would do that.” A beta reader once scanned a passage from Will’s point of view and commented, “Jen has just inserted herself into the narrative.”
At about that same time I was beginning to understand that the best way to have my main character act and sound like a young man would be to channel one I admired. That’s when my son figuratively stepped in. Because I know him so well, it became easy to predict what he would do in any given situation. Although he is much different than Will, I knew his “maleness” would shine through. Whenever I had doubts about a line or action I’d assign to Will, I’d give my son a quick call. Many texts to him at that time began with, “What would you do if. . .”
With every new story, I dare myself to innovate. It’s the best way to keep narratives fresh and grow as a writer. I’ve got a fun one in the pipeline about a brother-sister duo accused of murdering their parents (will release in early 2028), and I’m halfway through a rough draft of a domestic suspense with paranormal elements—a wild, weird little tale which is taking my imagination to new heights but could easily flame out. You never know how a story will evolve. You spend months on a manuscript with results unknown, but for me that’s the sweet spot. The uncertainty of whether it will work out or not.
Like an anxious reader trying to figure out the culprit in a mystery, I write with bated breath, hoping the resolution will intrigue—and hopefully astonish—me. If I’m satisfied, then my readers will be as well.
-Jennifer Sadera, author of Maybe You Lied
Okay, I was not expecting to tear up a little reading about those “what would you do if…” texts to your son, but here we are. There’s something so moving about a mother trusting her son enough to let him help her write a young man true to life, rather than guessing at it alone. And the premise itself, discovering the person who raised you has been lying since you were five, is exactly the kind of gut-punch I go for in this genre. Thank you so much for sharing this with us, Jennifer, I cannot wait for readers to meet Will.
Learn more about Jennifer and her work at JenniferSadera.com.
Synopsis:
Everything he knows about his life is. . . a lie.
Blindsided by the sudden death of his mother, 21-year-old Will Lockhart can no longer afford the rent or bear the haunting memories of their shared Massachusetts apartment. While packing up his mother’s belongings, he discovers his long-dead father’s deed to a house in upstate New York. With nowhere else to go, he settles there, intent on making a fresh start. But odd things happen as soon as Will moves in. He’s unnerved by evidence of fire damage in the cottage, and alarmed by the seizure his elderly next-door neighbor suffers upon meeting him. Most shocking of all are the rumors of a long-ago murder in his house. Now, trapped in a town full of strangers, unsure of whether local murmurings are true or simply small-town gossip, he’s determined to discover what really happened all those years ago, and how he’s connected to the chaos. The truth will set him free. Or get him killed.
Praise for Maybe You Lied:
“Sadera has done it again! Maybe You Lied is an evocative and compelling tale of family trauma, betrayal, and the chilling truth that the most dangerous secrets are those buried by the people closest to us.”
~ Lisa Malice, bestselling author of Lest She Forget, winner of the 2023 IBPA Best New Voice in Fiction Award
“MAYBE YOU LIED is a spectacular thriller that instantly grips you and refuses to let go. With great emotional depth, this novel plunges you inside Will Lockhart’s mind, soul, and angst. He’s a down on his luck, grief and guilt-ridden young man stuck in a hopeless rut. When he discovers a deed to a house he believes he’s inherited, it seems like his luck just might change. Page by page, he uncovers hidden layers of a past he could never have imagined. But when nothing is as it seems and everything you knew about your family and your past is a lie, be careful of digging up the truth. It might set you free…unless it kills you first. This darkly suspenseful, romantic journey knits a cast of intriguing, deeply unreliable characters into a clever, twisty narrative. You won’t want to put down this edgy story of loss, love, identity, and family truths as you hurtle towards its surprising end.”
~ Zelly Ruskin, award-winning author of Not Yours to Keep and the forthcoming One of Us Must Die
“Maybe You Lied is a twisty, emotionally charged domestic suspense that ramps up to a jaw-dropping, visceral finale. Don’t miss it!”
~ Bonnie Traymore, Author of The Rich Guy’s Wife
“Family ties? Or family lies? Will Lockhart is coming home to a woodland cottage he never knew existed, his life in shreds and fragments. In a novel as intricately woven as a web, Jennifer Sadera explores sociopathy, nature versus nurture, and the one thing that can never die–a chance at love and redemption.”
~ Jenny Milchman, Mary Higgins Clark award winning author of the Arles Shepherd thrillers
“A young man’s attempt to piece together his family’s dark history propels this gripping mystery, which moves with an electric speed through secrets twistier than the branches of a mangled family tree. Combining thrills, romance, and a moving exploration of grief, MAYBE YOU LIED is perfect for fans of sinister family dynamics who want to devour a thriller in one breathless go.”
~ Ashley Winstead, national bestselling author of This Book Will Bury Me
Book Details:
Genre: Psychological Suspense, Domestic Suspense
Published by: Creative James Media
Publication Date: September 22, 2026
Number of Pages: 344
Shop The Book: Maybe You Lied
Shop My Stack: 2026 Books Read
Read an excerpt:
Landlords don’t rent apartments to zombies.
I scratched the four-day stubble on my jawline and parked my mom’s Camry behind the brown brick walk-up. Home-Not-So-Sweet Home.
As I stepped into the cramped apartment lobby Sergei was waiting.
“The rent,” he said, his guttural Russian accent turning his words into a nonsensical de-REN. I paused, reluctantly meeting the bushy brows lowered ominously over his steely slitted eyes. Easy to translate.
I nodded and darted my own eyes to the stairway. One of these days my landlord would surely raise a heavily muscled arm and crash his ham hock fist into my face. Emitting my zombie grunt, I pivoted to the stairwell and rushed up, expecting Sergei to follow. Relieved when he didn’t.
It would be a brief reprieve. When my mom lived here Sergei only showed up once a month, but in the three years since she died, he’d pounded his frustration with my spotty payments onto my apartment door with increasing frequency, not budging until I opened the creaky steel barrier. Saying nothing, he’d hold out a meaty palm that looked like it could strangle me all by itself.
Back when I still had cash, I’d offer a wad of fifties and hundreds that he’d snatch up like grabbing cash from an ATM. Only the Will Lockhart machine was now empty, and Sergei looked as though he wanted to kick it into compliance. Kick me. Face flushed with fury, he’d study me with those hard gray pebbles, taking in my disheveled hair and sagging clothes. A gaze that told me exactly what he thought about me—a twenty-one-year-old slacker who clearly cared about nothing. A deadbeat. A zombie. And this was mostly true except for the one thing I cared deeply about: those last seconds with Mom. I relived them daily, the guilt as fresh and dangerously addictive as a drunk’s bleary-eyed yearning for a Bloody Mary the morning after a bender.
I deserved the memories. If not for me, Mom would still be alive.
I closed my eyes against the inevitable scene rolling through my mind. The flash of headlights slicing through my Honda’s dusky interior like a white-hot comet, too fast to stop, too bright to blink away; a violent force whirling me into its vortex. My neck twisting painfully, head hitting something hard. The car’s interior exploding into a slow-motion kaleidoscope. How I’d instinctively thrust my arm out to protect my mom, instant pain bolting from fingers to shoulder; glass shattering and raining down upon us like the stinging embers of trailing fireworks.
And then, the stillness. The church-like quiet.
I’d blinked into the silence as the noises trickled in—the hissing of the steaming engine, and a tinny song coming through the radio from somewhere under the car’s hood. A far-off voice belted out a twangy country tune. “Put on the bacon and the eggs, darlin’ . . .”
Mom and her country music. Mom and her . . . Mom. Head throbbing, I’d scanned the smoke-choked twilight. She was right where she was supposed to be, still hooked in place by her seatbelt, staring straight ahead, like she was listening for something.
“Mom? Are you all right?”
Beyond the jagged glass edges of her blown-out window I saw the lines of the truck through the smoky haze, the words “Barclay’s Bread” written in fancy red letters on its wide, boxy side. Mom said nothing.
Painfully bolted into our twisted metal cage, waiting for the Jaws of Life to extract us, I’d reached out, trying to touch her with my other hand, the one that still worked. If I could just shake her out of her trance.
But in those final precious seconds our bodies existed in the same world, I knew. She was already gone.
I shook my head, forcing me back to the present, wishing my mind could be like the Etch-a-Sketch Mom bought me when I was six. One harsh shake in each direction and the contents of the screen disappeared. But my mind retained in painful detail the truck driver’s distinctive profile, the beak of a nose angled down, a squinted eye and bulbous cheekbone lit up by his cell-phone screen.
As a kid, the thought of Mom dying had set waves of terror rolling through me. Not just because I loved her, but because a part of me always dreaded the day she’d be taken from me. Convinced it would happen but unsure of when, I’d spent a good four years waking up each night and tiptoeing to her bedroom door, peeking through the crack between the edge of the flimsy wood and the wall to ensure she was still in bed, alive. Ridiculous as it seemed, even then, it was understandable, given our track record. I mean, not long before my dad left us, just after my fifth birthday, we’d been a family of four.
***
Excerpt from MAYBE YOU LIED by Jennifer Sadera. Copyright 2026 by Jennifer Sadera. Reproduced with permission from Jennifer Sadera. All rights reserved.
Author Bio:
Jennifer Sadera first worked in the publishing industry as a junior copywriter for NAL/Penguin. She has written and edited for newspapers and magazines as a freelancer and on the staffs of major women’s publications, Woman’s World and Redbook.
Catch Up With Jennifer Sadera:
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