Features Katherine Wood

By Mindy Carlson

Katherine Wood’s new novel LADYKILLER is an intense psychological trip wrapped inside the gloriousness of wealth and privilege. Gia and Abby have been friends forever, thrown together as children when Gia’s billionaire father hired Abby’s mother to be their family’s cook. They went everywhere together, including spending summers at Gia’s family home in Greece.

Then “The Incident” happened, and nothing between them was ever the same. The two girls drifted apart, Gia into her lifestyle of indulgence, where she impulsively marries Garrett after a whirlwind romance, and Abby into rigid order as a lawyer.

Then Gia asks Abby to meet her and her brother, Benny, in Sweden for her birthday. When Gia doesn’t show up, Abby and Benny rush to Greece and discover she and Garrett are missing. Abby begins to read through the manuscript Gia left behind, looking for clues as to what happened on the picturesque Greek island.

The manuscript reveals that things in Gia’s life weren’t as magical as Abby’s been led to believe. Salacious, scandalous, and dangerous. But is it all true? And can Abby find Gia before it’s too late?

Katherine Wood

The Big Thrill was pleased to sit down with Wood to discuss unreliable narrators and the strong bonds between childhood friends.

Where did the idea for LADYKILLER come from?

I wanted to play with truth and perspective, asking the question, Can we ever really know someone? I started with the idea of a manuscript written by someone who is missing and spun out the idea from there. What happened? Where is this person now? And as we learn more, how does that change our perspective? It was also important to me that this be a fun, sexy summer read set in a fabulous location with enough twists and turns to leave the reader’s head spinning.

How would you describe the complicated friendship dynamic between Abby and Gia?

Abby and Gia are definitely co-dependent, and while their personalities are completely different, with Gia brash and mercurial and Abby quiet and steady, they’ve always complemented and understood each other. Gia befriended Abby after Abby’s mom came to work as Gia’s family’s chef when the girls were thirteen, and Gia’s father paid for Abby’s schooling—both boarding school and college—so Abby recognizes she would not have the life she does today without Gia’s friendship, and feels deeply indebted to her. But Gia is just as reliant on Abby. She’s always counted on Abby to be her rock, depending on Abby to always have her back, for better or worse. But with that much dependency comes friction, especially as the friends begin to outgrow their roles and want different things for themselves. Gia and Abby’s friendship is at a tipping point.

A theme in LADYKILLER is how deep childhood bonds between friends will persevere no matter what happens between them. Why do you think we are bonded so closely with the friends we grew up with?

So much of who we are is built on the foundations that are put into place when we’re young before we even understand that we’re building those foundations. How we see the world, what we think of as “normal,” our ideas of what love and family should look like are all constructed from our experiences. So, the people we share those experiences with have a special place in our hearts, and we often feel like we know them better than we can ever know anyone in adulthood.

Your depictions of the Greek Island where LADYKILLER is set are incredibly vivid. What kind of research did you do to ensure your world was so immersive?

I love to travel, as you may have guessed! Greece is so beautiful, and I’ve wanted to set a book in the Greek islands since I first visited many years ago. I love setting books in exotic locations that I get to visit every day in my mind while I’m writing, and isolation is great for suspense, so a small Greek island was a natural choice for setting. I called on my own memories, pictures, and video, and also scoured the internet and used my VR headset to virtually travel any time I needed an extra shot of inspiration.

LADYKILLER contains multiple reveals that are complexly twisted together. How were you able to unpeel the layers without accidentally giving them all away?

I started with a long stream-of-consciousness document that morphed into more organized notecards on a corkboard that then became the first outline. This outline changed (and so did the manuscript) as I discovered new things about my characters. In the end, it took lots of reading and re-reading, editing, and re-editing to make sure all the threads didn’t tangle. A special thanks goes out to both my agent and editor for their keen eyes during this process!

LADYKILLER features an unreliable narrator with some Gone Girl vibes. What challenges did you find in writing a character that is not always truthful with the reader/with themselves? (No Spoilers!)

It’s important to me as the author never to lie to the reader—but characters will lie sometimes (after all, they are only human)—and it’s up to the reader to determine who to trust, just as we do in our everyday lives. As the author, I always want to be loyal to my characters and their point of view, also making sure I’m giving enough clues for the reader to decide who is telling the truth. Though it is tempting to spell it out, I trust my readers to be clever enough to see the truth without my hitting them over the head with it. People read books different ways (just as we see life different ways), and I hope to inspire readers to discuss and debate who is trustworthy and who isn’t.

What’s next?

Coming in summer 2025, my next book is an escapist mystery that follows a private detective called to St. Barth’s by her tech titan ex-boyfriend to figure out who is blackmailing him. Only, when she arrives, she finds blackmail is just the tip of the iceberg. In over her head, she’ll have to face the skeletons in her own closet if she ever wants to make it home.

The Big Thrill Interviews Author Katherine Wood