{I am beyond delighted to be chatting with Marybeth Mayhew Whalen today. Her novel, The Things We Wish Were True, released earlier this month and shot straight to the top of several of Amazon’s bestseller lists — and for good reason. In case you missed it, you can catch my glowing review here. 

Marybeth has written five previous novels in addition to The Things We Wish Were True. She speaks to women’s groups around the US and is the co-founder of the popular women’s fiction site, She Reads. Marybeth and her husband, Curt, have been married for 25 years and are the parents of six children, ranging from young adult to elementary age. They live in North Carolina. Connect with Marybeth online at MarybethWhalen.com.}

Marybeth, welcome! For the past many years, I’ve known you best as half the brains behind the wildly popular She Reads blog, which is certainly a favorite of mine 🙂 . Of the many things I enjoy about She Reads, one of the best is catching glimpses of your warm friendship with co-founder, novelist Ariel Lawhon. Please tell us the story of your friendship as well as how She Reads came to be.

Ariel and I met at an industry conference 8 years ago and our friendship was instantaneous. We marvel still about how rare and unlikely it was—and we don’t take it for granted. We’re friends as women, wives, and mothers. But we’re also friends as readers and writers, so our friendship permeates many levels of our lives. We started She Reads as a result of our shared love of reading—and after we noticed that many of our friends depended on us to recommend books. We decided to expand our reach by doing the same thing online. (That’s the uber short version!)

You’ve written several novels for the Christian market, but your newly released novel, The Things We Wish Were True, is your first with a mainstream publisher. Why the switch?

There were some issues and themes I wanted to delve into that were a bit darker than what the Christian market typically covers. Writing for the general market gave me a wider range.

[Tweet “”My story is one every writer should hear—don’t give up!” @MarybethWhalen @SheReadsBookCLB #SRBlog”]

I especially liked how you told The Things We Wish Were True from the perspectives of a range of viewpoint characters. I think I counted six, including three women, two men, and a child. How did you manage to so believably get inside the heads of such a wide variety of characters?

That was one of the first questions my editor asked me when we “met” over the phone! I think the best explanation I can give is that I have six kids—so keeping up with six different personalities, agendas, desires, and actions is pretty normal to me.

In your Author’s Note, you reveal that the idea for The Things We Wish Were True sprang from a real-life incident. Is there a reason you felt this story was more suited to the general market than the inspirational one?

It wasn’t so much the event itself that was well-suited for the general market—it was that it brought these six disparate people together who were all hiding secrets and dealing with some stuff that definitely was better suited for the general market.

In your acknowledgements, you thank your agent for exhorting you “not to give up, and then [not giving] up, either.” What’s the story there?

The book didn’t sell right away. It’s a long, convoluted story that I won’t bore you with, but basically she talked me through some rewrites and a re-titling and then took me out on submission again. And this time the book went to auction! My story is one that I think every writer should hear—don’t give up! But also be willing to make changes.

Agreed! Thanks so much, Marybeth. A pleasure having you here today.