Title: Tell No Lies
Author: Julie Compton
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Minotaur
ISBN: 978-0312378752
1. First off, congratulations on the big novel sale! Give us the elevator pitch. What’s your book about?Tell No Lies is a legal thriller, described by the publisher as part Scott Turow, part Jodi Picoult; it’s not so much a whodunit as a whydunit. The protagonist, Jack Hilliard, is a family man and assistant DA who, when he finds himself simultaneously seduced by a dream job and a tempting woman, learns how easy it is to compromise his values and comfortable life for ambition and desire. But when the object of his obsession is charged with a heinous crime and Jack believes he alone can prove her innocence, he must choose between saving her by speaking out, or saving his marriage and career by remaining silent.
2. Most new novelists have an interesting story to tell about their journey to publication. What’s yours? Did you use an agent? Make sure to tell us about the day you found out you’d sold a book.
No, I didn’t use an agent, though I tried! I approached many agents, but I did so at first before it was ready – a common rookie’s mistake. I continued to work on the manuscript, revising, editing, and continually going back to it to see what needed fixing. I knew I was heading in the right direction when I started to get personalized rejections and constructive criticism. At some point I started approaching smaller publishers directly as I continued to search for an agent, and I was eventually offered a contract by a small publisher. It had been released (with a different title) for only a couple of months when an acquaintance staying at a rental property my husband and I own found a copy in a drawer, read it, liked it and gave it to someone she knew at Macmillan (my UK publisher).
As for the day I found out? The first time around, with the smaller publisher, I was upstairs in my office at home and my kids were downstairs. My husband, unbelievably, was out of the country on business. I screamed, and my kids thought something was wrong! It took me a while to reach my husband, but after I did, I then called my parents and told them. With Macmillan, it was more of a gradual process. Once I knew they were interested, we talked a bit about things before the actual offer came. Of course, once it did, I screamed again. (And I think my husband was out of town again, too!) I still pinch myself every now and then, because being published by companies of the caliber of Macmillan and St. Martin’s is a lifelong dream come true for me.
3. Do you have another book in the pipeline? What are you working on now?
I recently turned in the manuscript for my second novel and am gearing up for the editing stage with my editors. It’s the story of a guy – a biker – whose girlfriend is severely injured in a motorcycle accident and mysteriously taken from him without so much as a goodbye. In his quest to get her back and literally save her life, he ends up figuratively saving his own, too.
4. What’s your writing process like? Morning writer, night writer, or something in between?
I’m a “morning into daytime” writer. When I was younger, I considered myself a night owl, but over the years (or shall I say, since having children), I’ve become a morning person. When I’m in the middle of a project, I like to get up before anyone else, make my coffee, peruse the newspaper, and start writing as the sun comes up. I take breaks only to get my kids off to school, and then I return to writing until they get home in the afternoon. Some days I can write for nine hours, but it will seem like two.
5. There seems to be an unusually high percentage of writers who own cats. Here at the The First Book, we’re doing a study to find out if there’s a direct relationship between writing success and cat ownership. Do you own a cat? If so, tell us about him or her. If not, tell us what you have against cats.
Oh yeah! Three cats in the Compton household (except we don’t own them; they own us), and a dog, a bird, two turtles and two rats. The cats are siblings: Lucy, Tiger, and Smokey. Lucy is a cuddler and likes to get friendly just as I’m trying to go to sleep; Tiger thinks the entire house is his litter box and if he wasn’t so cute, he’d have been tossed out long ago, and Smokey is my writing bud. He sleeps in an easy chair on the opposite side of my desk and keeps me company throughout the day.
I really love this blog, it’s great that a forum has been provided for first time authors to promote their book as well as providing aspiring authors (like me!) insight into how successful authors get published!
Julie your book sounds fascinating and I can’t wait to read it. I love the dilemna that you’ve put your protagonist in, it sounds very compelling.
Suzanne, you are so right. Scott has done a great thing here for new writers. Thank you again, Scott, for providing this forum!
I surfed around your blog for a bit; it was pretty compelling, too. I especially liked your post about Edwards and Hunter, and Jay McInerney’s novel. I’d read somewhere recently about his book, and it piqued my interest. I think your post was the tipping point that will actually get me off my bum to pick it up and read it! I never stop being amazed by these types of stories: about Edwards, and Spitzer before him, and many before them. . . It was the same type of news story, many years ago, that first gave me the seed of an idea for Tell No Lies. You hear about them and you think to yourself: why, why, why??? That was the question I was trying to answer for my particular protagonist (and indeed, for other characters in the novel, also). It’s sort of weird how “timely” the novel turned out to be, in that respect.