Q&A With Brianna Labuskes 

Brianna Labuskes is the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Amazon Charts & USA Today Bestselling Author of psychological thrillers and historical fiction. I am so delighted that Rachel Tarlow Gul has connected me with Brianna. Some of Brianna’s works include The Boxcar Librarian, The Lies You Wrote, By The Time You Read This & coming out on August 4^th, is her upcoming release Clean Slate. 

Q: Welcome to Book Notions Brianna! It’s an honor to be interviewing you! Would you please give a brief description of your books beginning with your new release, Clean Slate? 

A: Thank you so much for having me! Clean Slate blends the page-turning beats of a serial killer crime procedural with the complex layers of a psychological thriller. While it grapples with some intense themes, like social disparity in the justice system, it’s also both funny and fast-paced. I would say my protagonist, Olive, probably takes herself a little less seriously than characters I’ve written in the past. 

As for my books overall, I really just like telling a good story. Sometimes that means it’s a sociopath hunting down a serial killer and sometimes that means it’s a coal miner’s daughter looking for her father’s killer in 1920s Montana. I love writing page-turners with complex characters no matter what setting they’re in. 

Q: Clean Slate’s premise is unique with a crime scene cleaner getting involved in solving a mystery surrounding 3 mysterious suicides that turn out to be murders when the killer reaches out to thank her. Was this a fun book to write?

A: It was so much fun for a couple reasons. I learned a ton about how forensic cleaning works, through documentaries and books on crime scene cleaners, which seemed to have a mini-boom in popularity around the film Sunshine Cleaning. I now know that brain matter hardens into a cement-like texture and that boiling water is the best way to kill maggots. And also, Olive was just a really fun character to write. She’s sarcastic and loves puns—I got to do a lot of amusing research for her tank tops—she listens exclusively to ’90s and early aughts pop princesses. I got to write an on-page romance for the first time in one of my thrillers. The whole process was a blast!

Q: What drew you into writing mystery and suspense as well as historical fiction, and what lessons and emotions do you hope readers take away from your novels after they turn the last page? 

A: I love the language of mysteries, how you can describe things in grotesquely lyrical fashion. I also love the pace of suspense, along with the feeling of weaving together multiple storylines that contain a multitude of clues knowing the reader is trusting you to make sense of it all in the end. There’s nothing like the feeling of pulling off a twist no one saw coming. For a lot of the same reasons, I love historical fiction. The stakes are so high, you’re working with characters who are having the best and worst days of their lives so all their emotions are right there on the surface and so big. That creates space to dive into the nuance of what it means to be human. 

And I hope that’s what they walk away with. Not answers, but questions. What does it mean to be human, what would they as a reader do in such a scenario, why would they judge someone for acting differently and could they imagine the reason someone would? I would love to make a reader both satisfied with the ending but feeling a sense of curiosity about themselves and the world after finishing. 

Q: Since you write both psychological mystery thrillers and historical fiction, what genres outside of those two, would you experiment with in the future? 

A: I love romance, especially historical romance (shocker!). I don’t always write it into my thrillers because I don’t think it tends to mesh well with blood and guts, but I love reading romance novels, so I think I would gravitate in that direction. I also think there’s a lot of different avenues to explore in upmarket and book club fiction. I enjoy writing thematic stories that make readers think, so that feels like a good fit. 

Q: Will your next book be historical fiction or mystery? If it’s a mystery, will it be a sequel to Clean Slate, or something entirely different?

A: I do have a sequel for Clean Slate coming! It actually explores Olive’s backstory a bit more, and was only my second thriller to ever make me cry while writing and reading the ending. I also have a historical project coming out set during WW2 in Casablanca, which let me explore parallels to today’s refugee and immigration crisis. 

Q: Would you please provide links to your social media accounts so the readers of the blog and I may follow you?

A: I’m at Instagram @brilabuskes and I have my website: Brianna.labuskes@gmail.com. I also co-host a podcast with the Instagram handle @novelwriterspodcast where I talk about the craft of writing. 

Q: Does Hollywood have the rights to your work and who would be your dream cast to play the characters in your books, especially Clean Slate?

A: Some of my work has been optioned in the past, but there’s nothing currently in development! I had always thought Kristen Bell would be a killer Dr. Gretchen White to the point where she’s the only person I’ve ever fancast for my books independently of being asked. Emma Stone would be an amazing Olive, because she has that dry delivery and expressive face, which would be fun to see at the gross crime scenes. But I’m sure there are so many actors who could do the characters justice! It would just be fun seeing them brought to life.