Q&A With Ellery Lloyd

A few months ago, Heather Drucker was kind enough to mail me an early copy of The Final Act Of Juliette Willoughby by Ellery Lloyd, which was released this month. Ellery Lloyd is a pseudonym for married authors Collette Lyons & Paul Vlitos. They have written two other books, People Like Her & The Club. The Club was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick.

Q: Collette & Paul, would you both give brief descriptions of your books? 

A:Collette: Our first novel, People Like Her, is a suspense set in the world of influencer parents. Emmy is the Instamom whose USP is telling it like it is about the trials and tribulations of being a Mom with young kids, but she isn’t quite as honest as she makes out. Her failed novelist husband Dan is starting to tire of the charade but has to put up with it as she is the only one bringing money in, even though he hates the fact that their children, Bear and Coco, are used as content. And they are all being stalked by someone who knows the truth about Emmy and is determined to make her pay…

Paul: Our second novel, The Club, which was a New York Times bestselling Reese Witherspoon pick, is a murder mystery set at the opening of a celebrity private members club on a tidal island, accessed only by a treacherous causeway. It’s told through the eyes of the staff on the island, and so we see the obnoxious and entitled guest list through their eyes, all unaware that their secrets and lies are about to come spilling out, and more than one person will end up dead…

Collette: The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby is a mystery set over the course of a century, with a painting with secrets at its heart. In 1938 Paris, a runaway British heiress Juliette Willoughby exhibits her masterpiece as part of the 1938 International Surrealist Exhibition but dies soon after in a studio fire that also destroys the painting. Or so we think… In 1990s Cambridge, two art history students, Patrick and Caroline, are working on their dissertations on the Surrealists, come across what they believe is proof that the painting survived and something sinister might have been at play in the fire. And in Dubai in the present day, Patrick has just sold the rediscovered painting on behalf of his oldest friend Harry, the sole surviving member of the aristocratic Willoughby family, for £42 million. The day after, Harry is found brutally murdered, and Patrick arrested for the crime. Does the painting hold the secret to the deaths?

Q: I love the mystery mixed with history in The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby. What made you want to write a book that blended both genres together?

A: Collette: Juliette’s story was the one that came to us first, almost fully formed. Hers is the narrative around which all the other modern-day plotlines are intertwined, and we wanted her to feel vital and alive, so we really needed to hear her voice too. That’s why this novel has a historical strand. Also, we really wanted to bring the Surrealist circle in Paris to life, so apart from Juliette and Oskar, her lover, the other artists mentioned are all real historical figures.

Q: How much research went into The Final Act Of Juliette Willoughby when it came to the 1930s timeline?

A: Paul: We have a whole, groaning shelf in our study with books. It was a lot of research, but a lot of it was really fun to do. We regularly visited Courtauld and the Tate, which both feature in the book, and went to Paris too. It was quite a different experience from writing The Club, which we had to do in successive Covid lockdowns!

Q: Collette & Paul, what made you both want to become authors & why did you choose the name Ellery Lloyd as a pseudonym?

A: Collette: Paul had written two previous novels and is a professor of creative writing at the University of Greenwich. My background is journalism. We’d always talked about writing something together, but it wasn’t until after our daughter was born, and our social life took a nosedive, that we actually had time to write. It was something fun to do in the evening when we’d burned through all eight seasons of Game of Thrones! I wish I could tell you there was some deeper meaning behind the pseudonym, but the truth is that we were told two names on the cover of a fiction book don’t work, so we wanted to find a name that was unisex, and we were told long first names and short second names sound good. So it was just us Googling! 

Q: For anyone wanting to write a book with someone else, whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, whether it’s family, friends, or in this case, your spouse, what would be your advice for them?

A: Plan, plan, plan! Especially in the crime and thriller genre, you need to know where you’re both going or it will end up like a game of Consequences.

Q: Collette, you used to be a journalist and editor in Dubai & London & the former deputy editor of Grazia Middle East, content director of Elle (UK) & editorial director at Soho House as well as writing for the Guardian, the Telegraph, & the Sunday Times. It all sounds so impressive! What were those experiences like? Paul, you are a professor of creative writing at the University of Greenwich, which I find impressive too! How do you juggle being an author writing books with your wife & being a creative writing professor?

A: Collette: I had such a fun career in journalism, and actually I think it’s such good training for novelists. You are used to being edited, you are well-versed in coming up with zeitgeisty ideas and also working on a deadline, and you know never to be too precious about your words.

Paul: I think because we get to write together, it never really feels like work. The plotting stage especially is often us sitting with a glass of wine in the evening and discussing ideas.

Q: Does Hollywood have the rights to any of your work? I would love to watch a miniseries version of The Final Act Of Juliette Willoughby. The entertainment industry needs original content again.

A: Collette: Of all our books, I feel like I have the strongest sense of what Juliette would look like on screen. I would love to see that, and we are in discussions… Our other two novels have been optioned too, so I suspect they might make it to the screen first.

Q: With how the epilogue ended, are you writing a sequel to The Final Act Of Juliette Willoughby, or will your next novel be a different story with different characters?

A: Paul: We’d love to write sequels to all of our books – it’s always a bit sad when you have to say goodbye to characters. I guess it’s one of the reasons you hope that your books will get a second life on screen – if they do, and make it to the second season, it would be amazing to see where they get taken. But no, the novel we are currently working on – our fourth – is a time travel murder mystery…

Q: How does it feel knowing that your book The Club was chosen as a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pic? Did the two of you meet Reese Witherspoon? She seems like such a sweetheart and very down to earth.

A: Collette: It was honestly like winning the lottery. So amazing! We didn’t meet Reese, but she sent us a wonderful gift – a painting of our book cover – to celebrate being the pick, and we are in regular contact with her team. It’s like being part of a little family, being a Reese author.