Contemporary Thrillers SOCIETY OF LIES with Lauren Ling Brown

How far would you go to belong?

Maya has returned to Princeton for her college reunion—it’s been a decade since she graduated, and she is looking forward to seeing old faces and reminiscing about her time there. This visit is special because Maya will also be attending the graduation of her little sister, Naomi.

But what should have been a dream weekend becomes Maya’s worst nightmare when she receives the news that Naomi is dead. The police are calling it an accident, but Maya suspects that there is more to the story than they are letting on.

As Maya pieces together what happened in the months leading up to her sister’s death, she begins to realize how much Naomi hid from her. Despite Maya’s warnings, Naomi had joined Sterling Club, the most exclusive social club on campus—the same one Maya belonged to. And if she had to guess, Naomi was likely tapped for the secret society within it.

The more Maya uncovers, the more terrified she becomes that Naomi’s decision to follow in her footsteps might have been what got her killed. Because Maya’s time at Princeton wasn’t as wonderful as she’d always made it seem—after all, her sister wasn’t the first young woman to turn up dead. Now every clue is leading Maya back to the past . . . and to the secret she’s kept all these years.

Lauren Ling Brown recently sat down with The Big Thrill to discuss her debut contemporary thriller, SOCIETY OF LIES.

Lauren Ling Brown

A novel is such a major undertaking; there’s the writing of it, of course, then you’re spending months and months revising, polishing, and then promoting it. How did you know this was the book you wanted to spend the next couple of years on?

I didn’t know! Not at all! But I guess this idea and these topics are reoccurring themes in my writing, so they’ve been bouncing around my head for awhile. I always spend a long time outlining, usually a year or more, outlining many different ideas, but the ones I like best stick around, and so I guess whichever idea I’m left with after a year of outlining is the one I’ll go with.

Can you pinpoint a moment or incident that sparked the idea for this book?

I touched on this in my previous answer, but it was a combination of things that sparked the idea for the book.

I wrote Society of Lies during the pandemic, six months after George Floyd’s murder, shortly after January 6th 2021, when our democracy was tested, and the conversations that I was having with my family and friends on topics like race, class, privilege, and free speech made their way into the novel. I wanted it to be entertaining, but also inspire these difficult conversations.

Books I read growing up also inspired the novel, but I never saw myself in these novels. So I wanted to center the story around a Black and Asian woman of color like me who saw the world in a similar way.

Lastly, but importantly, a lot of the relationship between the sisters was inspired by my own relationship with my sister. I thought a lot about how I respected and admired her and how I should tell her these things more often.

Were there any particular books, movies, or songs that were knocking around in your head while you were writing this one?

Hmmm that’s hard to answer only because I am an avid reader and consumer of art—film, tv, poetry, paintings—and all of that feeds into my worldview and in turn probably subconsciously influences my writing. I usually only read a book once—there are just so many good books in the world! So I don’t have any particular one that inspired this, more my own personal experience than anything else.

When you first created your protagonist for this book, did you see an empty space in crime lit that you wanted to fill? What can you share about the inspiration for that character?

Yes! I wanted to see more women of color as the protagonist in this genre. I also wanted to see thriller/suspense novels that confronted deeper topics. I love S.A. Cosby’s work for this reason, Susie Yang, Celeste Ng, Gabrielle Zevin, Zakiya Dalila Harris, and others who are writing these important novels that discuss the important social issues of today.

In addition to a great read, what do you hope readers will take away from this story?

I hope that it will encourage positive discourse around subjects like race, class, multiracial identity, and privilege, and help people connect and understand one another a little bit better. That, and if it could reach someone who had a similar experience as I did, that would make it worth writing.

What can you share about what you’re working on next?

I can’t share much, but I’ve been outlining one idea for a multi-generational mystery for the past year!