Interview With NYT Bestselling Author Doug Corleone About His New Psychological Thriller

1.      What inspired you to write this book? Falls to Pieces was largely inspired by some of the most intriguing books I read over the past few years, including William Landay’s Defending Jacob and Laura Dave’s The Last Thing He Told Me. Those novels explore the complicated relationship between a father and son, and a stepmother and stepdaughter, respectively. In Falls to Pieces, a mother and her teenage daughter are hiding on Maui when a missing persons case exposes the secrets and lies put in place to protect them from their violent past.

 

2.      What exactly is it about – and who is it written for? David Pitt of Booklist called Falls to Pieces “a psychological thriller very much in the vein of Gillian Flynn and Lisa Jewell,” and I think that speaks to my intended audience. In addition to the evocative tropical setting and fast-paced plot, I strived to achieve a memorable voice and deep characterization which would appeal to a broad variety of readers, including past fans and lovers of domestic suspense. Falls to Pieces is chiefly about a rocky mother-daughter relationship and the steps some people go to in order to escape a horrific past. 

 

3.      What do you hope readers will get out of reading your book? Without giving too much away, I hope readers come away with a true sense of the damage caused by trauma and how it permeates every facet of the sufferer’s life, long after the danger has passed. I also hope readers will want to learn more about PTSD by reading works like The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. who deftly explains how trauma does not only affect the mind but other bodily organs and systems, heightening the risk of long-term health problems like chronic fatigue syndrome and other painful autoimmune diseases that essentially turn our bodies against us. 

 

4.      How did you decide on your book’s title and cover design? The novel began under the working title The Falls, which over time felt too generic. Falls to Pieces alludes to the 200-foot Maui waterfall where a local attorney goes missing, while strongly suggesting that it’s a psychological thriller with an unreliable narrator. It’s also a play on the terrific Velvet Revolver song, “Fall to Pieces.” My publisher Thomas & Mercer did a magnificent job on the cover, refreshingly incorporating many of my suggestions, from the color palette to the font used for my name. 

 

5.      What advice or words of wisdom do you have for fellow writers – other than run!? Don’t look for shortcuts – there aren’t any. Trust me, I’ve searched far and wide over the past two decades of my writing career. In the end, it comes down to loving the craft, putting in the work, accepting rejection, and remaining resolute in the face of seemingly impossible odds. Patience and persistence are key to success in this industry. When you do reach the point of having a polished, publishable manuscript, find an agent who believes in you and your writing. Then, find an editor who believes even more strongly in you and your work and is committed to being a true partner in the publication and sale of your novel.

 

6.      What trends in the book world do you see – and where do you think the book publishing industry is heading? I see a trend toward upmarket fiction, particularly standalones with deep characterization and high concept plots. I think the ebook market will continue to grow, while print sales will remain steady. A big question for me is whether the Big 5 can continue to adapt to an ever-changing marketplace, in which high-quality fiction can be purchased inexpensively and conveniently through individual sales or subscriptions like Kindle Unlimited. I predict significant changes in the way large newspapers calculate their bestseller lists and how booksellers decide which books will stock their shelves. I suspect A.I. will hurt genuine indie authors, as readers encounter more and more books written by machines. If that happens, readers will return to the traditional gatekeepers to find quality work, or they’ll stop reading.

 

7.      Were there experiences in your personal life or career that came in handy when writing this book? Falls to Pieces is a deeply personal book. The main character, though a woman, has more in common with me than most of my previous male protagonists. Over the course of the novel, she realizes she’s part of a cycle of generational trauma and needs to make an affirmative decision to end it. Some of my childhood experiences are incorporated into the novel through both narrators, Kati and her teenage daughter Zoe. 

 

8.      How would you describe your writing style? Which writers or books is your writing similar to? My main influences in the psychological thriller genre are authors like Gillian Flynn, Zoje Stage, Shari Lapena, John Marrs, and Kimberly McCreight. More broadly, my writing style incorporates a variety of authors from a number of genres. My earliest influences include everyone from crime novelists like John Grisham and Michael Connelly to street poets like Jim Carroll and Charles Bukowski.  

 

9.      What challenges did you overcome in the writing of this book? The bulk of this book was written during the pandemic, so there was the challenge of writing a novel with three young children at home with me. I wrote a truly terrible first draft, maybe the worst first draft I’ve ever written. I still loved the premise, so I heavily revised the first 50 pages and chucked the remaining 300. I even went so far as to rename the main characters, so that I wouldn’t be tempted to head in the same direction while writing the second and third drafts. The greatest benefit turned out to be one of the most memorable characters I’ve ever written – Mac – who didn’t even appear in the first draft. 

 

10.  If people can buy or read one book this week or month, why should it be yours? I consider Falls to Pieces the first novel in the second Act of my career, so readers will have a nine-book backlist to consider, as well as at least one book of gripping domestic suspense each year. My latest novel Live Through This was recently picked up by my publisher and will be released in February 2026. I think Falls to Pieces is a particularly great book for aspiring writers, because it demonstrates how an author can reinvent themselves, even after nine or ten novels. It’s also further proof that persistence and patience (and a lot of hard work) will eventually pay off, as long as you tune out the naysayers.     

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Douglas Corleone is the international bestselling author of Gone Cold, Payoff, and Robert Ludlum’s The Janson Equation, as well as the acclaimed Kevin Corvelli novels, the Simon Fisk international thrillers, and the stand-alone courtroom drama The Rough Cut. Corleone’s debut novel, One Man’s Paradise, won the 2009 Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award and was a finalist for the 2011 Shamus Award for Best First Novel. A former New York City criminal defense attorney, Corleone now resides in Honolulu, where he is currently at work on his next novel. For more information, visit www.douglascorleone.com.

 

 

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About Brian Feinblum

This award-winning blog has generated over four million pageviews. With 5,000+ posts over the past dozen years, it was named one of the best book marketing blogs by BookBaby  http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs  and recognized by Feedspot in 2021 and 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by www.WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.”  Copyright 2025.

 

For the past three decades, Brian Feinblum has helped thousands of authors. He formed his own book publicity firm in 2020. Prior to that, for 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book publicity firm, and as the director of publicity at two independent presses, Brian has worked with many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres, right along with best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark Victor Hansen, Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan RoAne, John C. Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler.

 

His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s The Independent (https://pubspot.ibpa-online.org/article/whats-needed-to-promote-a-book-successfully).

 

He hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America several years ago, and has spoken at ASJA, BookCAMP, Independent Book Publishers Association Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association, Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, Morgan James Publishing, and Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. He served as a judge for the 2024 IBPA Book Awards.

 

His letters-to-the-editor have been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, NY Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester) and The Washington Post. His first published book was The Florida Homeowner, Condo, & Co-Op Association Handbook.  It was featured in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald.

 

Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog.

 

You can connect with him at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum/ or https://www.facebook.com/brian.feinblum