Q&A With Anne Burt & Christina Baker Kline 

I always love doing Q&As with everyone I speak with though, doing a Q&A with not just one author but 2, 3 and more who’ve worked together to write a novel puts the extra icing on the cake! I’m honored to be doing this Q&A with Anne Burt who is the author of the debut novel The Dig & returning is Christina Baker Kline the New York Times Bestselling Author of A Piece Of The World, Orphan Train & The Exiles. Coming out on September 1^st is Christina’s and Anne’s first mystery thriller book they wrote together Please Don’t Lie. Let me tell you it kept me up late! 

Q1: Welcome back to Book Notions Christina & Welcome to Book Notions Anne! Would you ladies like to give a brief description of Please Don’t Lie for anyone who hasn’t read the book yet? Anne, can you give me a brief description of The Dig?

A1: Please Don’t Lie follows Hayley Stone as she attempts to rebuild her life after a series of devastating losses—her parents’ deaths in a house fire and her sister’s overdose. Newly married and deeply in love, Hayley moves with her husband to the remote Adirondack mountain town of Crystal River, New York, hoping for a fresh start. But the idyllic town soon reveals a darker side. Her once-devoted husband grows secretive and volatile, the locals’ cryptic warnings leave her unsettled, and the free-spirited couple living on their property appears to know more than they let on. As Hayley struggles to make sense of their increasingly suspicious behavior, she convinces herself that she’s overreacting. But as winter closes in, the isolation becomes suffocating—and Hayley begins to fear that in fleeing her past, she might have stumbled into something far more dangerous.

The Dig begins when Sarajevo-born siblings Antonia and Paul join a wealthy Midwestern family in the 1990s, setting a series of events with deadly consequences in motion. As an adult, Antonia longs to escape the constraints of her adopted town and embarks on a high-powered legal career. But it isn’t long before her brother’s mysterious disappearance pulls her back home. There, over the course of a single day, Antonia unearths decades of secrets and lies, leading to shocking revelations about her adoptive family—and the sinister truth behind her biological mother’s death—that will alter the course of her life and change her definition of family forever. The Dig, inspired by the Greek tragedy Antigone, portrays a woman at odds with her history, forced to choose between her own ambitions and her loyalty to her beloved, idealistic brother.

Q2: In the Acknowledgements section you two mentioned that you’ve been friends for 25 years, met at a bookstore in Montclair New Jersey & co-edited a book of essays titled About Face: Women Write about What They See When They Look in the Mirror. It was then you both discovered the joy of writing together. When was it that you decided to write a novel together? 

A2: The decision evolved organically over several creative projects. After co-editing About Face, we developed a pitch for a television series, which taught us we could build a shared story world and that we were both energized by the collaborative process. But the real turning point came when Christina was offered the chance to create a story outline for a scripted podcast. We developed this dark, twisty idea together that we both absolutely loved. When it came time to sign the contract and hand it off to other writers, we looked at each other and said, “Wait – we don’t want to give this away. This idea is too good. We want to write it ourselves.” That outline became the basis for Please Don’t Lie. Sometimes the best creative decisions happen when you’re unwilling to let go of something that excites you.

Q3: I think it’s amazing that you wrote together in your New York City Apartments and then at an Airbnb in the Adirondacks! I’m sure it helped create the atmosphere in Please Don’t Lie. For the writing process, did Anne write one chapter and then Christina wrote another chapter? Was Please Don’t Lie loosely taken from a real murder mystery?

A3: Our process is more integrated than alternating chapters. We co-wrote the first three chapters together and actually sold the novel on the strength of those chapters plus our detailed outline. Then Anne drafted the remaining chapters, Christina wrote the second draft, and we came together for extensive revision sessions – reading the entire manuscript aloud multiple times, which was crucial for calibrating character voice and emotional resonance.

The story isn’t based on a real murder mystery, but rather grew from our shared fascination with psychological questions: How well do we really know the people closest to us? What lengths will we go to protect our secrets? That week in the Adirondack Airbnb was essential – surrounded by those quiet woods and winding mountain roads, we could feel the isolation and eerie atmosphere that would become central to Crystal River. The setting itself became a character in our story.

Q4: Which scenes were your favorites to create for the novel? Some of my favorite parts of the book were Hayley & Megan’s friendship and the twists I did not see coming! 

A4: We’re so glad you loved Hayley and Megan’s friendship – that dynamic was particularly fun to develop because it’s so layered with affection, tension, and hidden motivations. One of our favorite scenes to write was the dinner party sequence, where what begins as a friendly gathering over ratatouille and bourbon gradually unspools into something charged and dangerous. There’s a game of Truth or Dare that opens the door to manipulation and betrayal, and we loved watching how loyalties shift in real time as the game goes on.

We also enjoyed crafting the moments where technology becomes both a lifeline and a trap – like when Hayley catches a glimpse of a text that reads “The kiss that changed everything,” or when someone desperately tries to call for an Uber during a storm only to discover no cars are available. These small details show how quickly our sense of safety can vanish.

Q5: How long did it take you two to write Please Don’t Lie? What lessons & emotions do you hope readers take away after reading Please Don’t Lie?

A5: The writing process took about two years from that initial outline to finished manuscript, though we were also developing our collaborative voice and learning the specific demands of thriller writing along the way.

What we hope readers take away is that unsettling feeling of questioning the small deceptions in their own lives long after they finish the final chapter. We want them to wonder: How well do I really know the people closest to me? We’re also fascinated by the masks people wear and the stories we tell ourselves to survive. If readers find themselves staying up late turning pages but then continuing to think about trust, betrayal, and the dangerous space between truth and deception, we’ve succeeded. The best thrillers don’t just entertain – they make you examine your own relationships and assumptions.

Q6: If Please Don’t Lie were to have a sequel, what would Hayley & Megan be doing right now? 

A6: Without giving away spoilers, we can say that Please Don’t Lie is actually the first in our Crystal River series! We’re deep into writing the second book, Watch Her Lie (working title), which features some familiar faces from the first novel as well as new characters with their own secrets to mine. At the start of Watch Her Lie, a tradwife influencer vanishes mid-livestream, sparking a viral investigation that exposes a toxic web of manipulation and deceit. We love the idea of exploring this fictional Adirondack community over multiple books, peeling back layers of its history and revealing new secrets with each story. The mountains have a way of bringing secrets to light, and Crystal River has many more stories to tell.

Q7: Whether Hollywood has the rights to Please Don’t Lie or not, who would be your dream cast to play the characters?

A7: This is such a fun question! For Hayley, we’d love someone who can convey both vulnerability and hidden strength – maybe Emma Stone. For Megan, we need someone sharp, funny, and a little inscrutable – someone like Aubrey Plaza, who can make you feel simultaneously charmed and slightly on edge. For Brandon, we’re thinking someone like Will Sharpe – an actor who can embody that philosophical, off-the-grid appeal while keeping the audience guessing about their true motivations. The casting would need actors who excel at psychological complexity, since so much of our thriller depends on what’s happening beneath the surface.

Q8: Anne & Christina can you two reveal any separate and solo projects you two are working on now? 

A8: Absolutely! Christina’s solo novel The Foursome will be published in Spring 2026, and Anne is finishing a draft of her next novel, The Feather Palace. Our collaboration hasn’t replaced our individual work – in fact, we’re finding that the precision and structural thinking required for thriller writing is subtly reshaping our solo novels, tightening our pacing and sharpening our scenes. It’s fascinating how working together has enhanced our individual voices while also creating this entirely new shared voice that’s distinct from either of our solo styles.

Q9: What is your advice for anyone wanting to write a novel with someone else, whether it’s with a family member, a spouse or a friend? 

 A9: Start with trust and emotional safety – you have to be able to share the wild idea, the unfinished thought, even the potentially terrible suggestion, and know it won’t be judged. Shared taste matters more than shared background; you need compatible instincts about what makes a story “good.”

Embrace what we call the “Yes, and” principle from improv – respond to ideas with momentum rather than skepticism. Build on each other’s suggestions. And be prepared for something unexpected to emerge: the book you write together shouldn’t sound like either of you individually – it should sound like both of you, creating a third voice that’s entirely new.

Most importantly, nothing is wasted. Every abandoned outline, every pivot, every false start becomes compost for the final story. Collaboration isn’t compromise – it’s expansion. Let your partner take you somewhere you wouldn’t go alone. We never expected to become thriller writers, but here we are, and now we never want to leave our writers’ room of two!