Interview with J.T. Ellison, Author of YOU KNOW WHY 

On August 25, 2026, bestselling author J.T. Ellison is set to release her highly anticipated and most haunting domestic thriller yet, YOU KNOW WHY (Thomas & Mercer). Building on the success of Last Seen and A Very Bad Thing, Ellison returns with a meticulously crafted domestic thriller that is impossible to put down. It’s a masterclass in suspense that explores the chilling question: Is the protagonist’s husband, the man she adores, a protector or a killer?

Perfect for fans of Lucy Foley and B.A. Paris, this page-turner delivers Ellison’s signature themes of marital betrayal, complicated sisters, and unreliable narrators.

We are delighted to feature this interview with J.T. Ellison!

You have been writing thrillers for 20 years. How does YOU KNOW WHY fit into  the arc of your career? What does it represent for you? 

This is my 34th novel, which in and of itself is utterly remarkable to me. It’s been a busy  twenty years, making up lost time for those years after college when I wasn’t writing. And this  story comes from a wellspring of deep emotion from a time in my life that was rather difficult. 

To finally conquer those emotions, marry them to such rich characters and bring them alive with  this story, has been cathartic in so many ways. I couldn’t help it—it turned into something so  much bigger than I’d initially imagined when I first wrote my loose outline. But that’s the fun in  writing, when characters grow into real people, with real problems, and real secrets. Exposing  those secrets, and helping the characters then find a resolution, is always my goal. It’s how I  make these books sing. 

What was the first image or scene that told you this was a book? 

It was Eden’s POV chapter where she’s running the odds of seeing her sister’s murderer on  a plane eleven years after the fact. I’d made it more complicated than it needed to be and got lost  in pages of statistics and extrapolations about how it might actually work. I didn’t know a great  deal of the story at that point, but I just loved that chapter, and the idea of this very lonely  woman losing herself in the one thing that’s always brought her comfort—math. It became the  touchpoint for her character and the full arc of her story. 

Brooklyn or Eden – whose voice came to you first? Who was your favorite character  to write? 

Oh, wow, they were both so much fun. I think Eden was first, Brooklyn was second — but  they were close. Eden is my anxiety personified; Brooklyn is my freebird. She is driven by my own desire to roam the world. There’s something that happens to Brooklyn that I resisted for  months because I was so worried about losing her voice during those scenes, but she was such a  strong, vibrant, carefree woman, she came right back to life—literally. One character whom I  enjoyed more than I’d planned was Detective Theresa Lee. She stole every scene she was in!  And writing my ghost Chloe, the dead wife, as a teenager, first talking to her eventual husband,  was a blast. I hear Mr. Brightside by the Killers, and I am forever thrust right into that smoky  basement party. 

How do you research the darker elements – forensics, toxicology, police procedure – without it derailing the emotional story? 

I’m lucky enough to have a deep base of knowledge about the procedural aspects of crime,  supplemented by regular forays into true crime and my incredible research assistant, who used to  be a death investigator at the morgue here in town. I’ve learned that the science must always  serve the story, the characters, and, of course, the victims.

If I view it as just that—science—it  takes away a bit of the ghoulishness. Plus, I always fall back on my door analogy. If you’re  reading a procedural, you’re most likely going to be in the head of a law enforcement officer,  knocking on someone’s door to ruin their life. If you’re reading a suspense, you’re most likely  the owner of said door, having your life ruined. The twin sides of the door help me establish just  how emotional every scene and every story needs to be. The more emotion, the less science, if  that makes sense.

What do you think domestic suspense does that other thriller subgenres can’t? 

Oh, let’s return to my door analogy! In domestic suspense, we are going inside someone’s  life, literally entering their sanctuary, their place of safety. I’m one of those people who loves  driving around neighborhoods after dark, seeing the lights shining, wondering who the people  are inside the house, what their lives are like, what their joys and sorrows might be. In a  domestic suspense, I’m allowed in to ask all of those questions, and find the answers through  intimate experience, which makes the story come alive with rich emotional texture.

What do you like about writing series versus standalones? 

Series are inherently easier because you’ve already built the world. The characters are  established in the first book, and from then on, you get to unpeel layer after layer of their  identity, putting them into myriad challenging situations, and growing the plots organically from  those interactions. Standalones, on the other hand, take more effort simply because you have to  build the world and the characters from scratch every single time.

I’m very excited that my first  series, with the indomitable Lt. Taylor Jackson, is being rereleased by Thomas & Mercer over  the next 12 months, bracketing this title. It’s so much fun to revisit the stories that made me the  writer I am today. And yes, I must admit, I always yearn to write another series title. It’s not that  it’s easier, it’s more like putting on your favorite pair of jeans after a long day in hard pants. 

What are some recurring themes in your work? 

My core theme is very straightforward: I love stories about women finding their power and  place in the world, and almost every book I’ve ever written has a variation of this theme. I’m  also a huge fan of mythology, so my books often have elements of these origin stories. I’m also  interested in how we as a society function in a highly curated world.

How much can be believed  about the people we think we know? What might the real story be? And finally, justice for those  who can’t get it for themselves. A college friend of mine (Dail Dinwiddie) went missing in 1992.  She disappeared after a U2 concert in Columbia, South Carolina, and I think every story has that  sense of dislocation and loss at its heart. 

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J.T. Ellison, a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, crafts domestic noir  and psychological thrillers that hook readers deep into the night. She created the Taylor  Jackson and Dr. Samantha Owens series, alongside standalone hits like A Very Bad  Thing, It’s One of Us, and Lie to Me. With Catherine Coulter, she co-authored six of the  “A Brit in the FBI” novels packed with international intrigue—because a good spy twist  never gets old. Her books span 30 countries and 18 languages, with millions sold and  several optioned for TV.

She’s received accolades including the ITW Thriller Award for  The Cold Room, Indie Next picks, COSTCO nods, SIBA Okra Picks, LibraryReads  selections, Amazon Editor’s Pick honors, and Book of the Month recognition, with Field  of Graves and No One Knows hitting the SIBA Southern Book Prize longlist in 2017.  She’s now at work on her 35th novel, ready to raise the stakes again. 

Ellison co-hosts A Word on Words on Nashville PBS, an Emmy-winning gig that shows  she’s as sharp on screen as on the page. She founded Two Tales Press for her short  fiction, runs The Wine Vixen, blending her love of food and wine with storytelling flair,  and pens The Creative Edge blog to spark inspiration for fellow writers. 

A former political insider, she lives in Nashville with her husband and twin kittens—one  of whom she swears is a ghost—where she’s always chasing the next twist.

YOU KNOW WHY

From New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison comes a suspenseful domestic thriller about identity, revenge, and the dangerous secrets kept hidden from the ones we love most.

It’s the holidays, and photographer Brooklyn Locke is bound for Italy with her husband, Trey, and their two children. But when Trey vanishes from the airport, missing their connecting flight, their impromptu vacation—and life as she knows it—begins to unravel.

Desperate to find her husband, Brooklyn accepts help from a stranger on the same flight, Eden Barrow. But Eden soon makes a shocking claim. She is the sister of Trey’s first wife, and ten years ago he was the main suspect in her murder.

Struggling to comprehend these accusations, fate delivers one more blow: a violent accident that leaves Brooklyn fighting for her life. With nowhere else to turn, Brooklyn leans on Eden for support. But each kindness feels too rehearsed, feeding her doubts about Eden’s motives and Trey’s true past.

Brooklyn has her own dark history she’d rather forget and confronts an unsettling possibility. Her life is not what it seems, and the truth is a trap—laid by someone waiting for the perfect time to strike.

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Category: Interviews