Domestic Thrillers Never Let Go by Lori Duffy Foster

Most people have nightmares while they sleep. Carla Murphy awakens to find herself living one. Carla is excited when her best friend asks her to lunch and tells her to bring the baby. Rachel dislikes children and had been distant throughout Carla’s pregnancy. But Carla should have known that people don’t change that quickly. Lunch was a ruse. Carla emerges from a drug-induced slumber sealed in a room in Rachel’s basement with her son gone. Her best friend is no friend. She is obsessed with Carla’s husband and will kill them both if she doesn’t get what she wants. Carla has no choice. She must help Rachel, her confidant since childhood, seduce her husband or they all die, and her baby will be lost to her forever.

“A dark and suspenseful page-turner about obsession and betrayal, from a veteran storyteller. I couldn’t put it down. Highly recommended.” – William Landay, bestselling author of All That Is Mine I Carry With Me

“How far would you go, what would you be willing to do, to find your stolen baby? NEVER LET GO is a compulsively readable tale of old feuds, secret jealousies, and a long-ago murder. Author Lori Duffy Foster takes us on an exciting journey of high stakes and high suspense. Unforgettable!” – New York Times bestselling author of The Assassins

“Once I started reading, I could not put this well-written and fast-paced drama down. … There were so many plot twists that kept me in the game and when I thought I was on firm grounds with where the narrative was going, the author changed the direction all to keep me emotionally invested as the drama unfolded to its conclusion.” – Dru Ann Love of Dru’s Book Musing, Raven Award winner and two-time Anthony Award Nominee.

Lori Duffy Foster recently spent some time with The Big Thrill discussing her latest thriller, NEVER LET GO.

Which took shape first: plot, character, or setting?
For NEVER LET GO, the characters came first. I got thinking back to high school, to crushes and obsessions, and wondering how well we really know the people we grow up alongside. People experience so much emotional, social and moral growth through the teen years and into adulthood. When we emerge from that together, do we ever really stop to become acquainted with the adults we have each become? In this case, Carla has not paid enough attention and it costs her.

Lori Duffy Foster

What attracts you to this book’s genre?
I love the pace of it. Sometimes, I get so caught up in the writing that I find my own pulse is pounding. I have to write faster so I can get past the threat and know what will happen next. I also love that it is a license to dig so deeply into the darker side of human nature, to think about how we would act and react when faced with the worst of it and who were are when we emerge from it.

No spoilers, but what can you tell us about your book that we won’t find in the jacket copy or the PR material?
In a secondary plot, the skeleton of a neglected and orphaned teenage boy who went missing during high school 15 years earlier is discovered buried at a construction site with a pile of cash. Most had assumed he’d run away with his grandmother’s money in hopes of a better life. Their own lives were good, so they imagined a happy ending for him , too. The bones are discovered at about the time Carla disappears. So police have to wonder, are the cases connected?

Lori Duffy Foster is a former crime reporter who writes from the hills of Northern Pennsylvania. NEVER LET GO is her first standalone novel. A Dead Man’s Eyes, the first in her Lisa Jamison Mysteries Series, was a Shamus Award finalist and an Agatha Award nominee. Never Broken, book 2, is now available and No Time to Breathe, book 3, releases in April of 2023. Lori is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, The Historical Novel Society, International Thriller Writers, Private Eyes Writers of America and Pennwriters.

To learn more about the author, please visit her website.