Seeing Doubles

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Woohoo, and throw confetti! We are welcoming the fabulous and incomparable J.T. Ellison today! Her newest book, A VERY BAD THING, is a very fabulous thing. (If you will allow me the cringey parallel construction.)

Every author will tell you, I think, that there is a thread or a theme that runs through all of their work-- whether it is central to the story or not, it is always there. I know Hallie often talks about how her books are always about trust, and mine are always about the nature of truth, as well as empowerment.

The wonderful J.T. has a persistent and constant theme as well—one you might not have noticed until she reveals it l today. And we promise, no spoilers.

Seeing Doubles

by JT Ellison

I am obsessed with twins.

Growing up, a nascent writer and perpetual planner, I wanted four children, two sets of twins. Two boys, two girls. That felt like a logical way to have children, especially because it would mean I could get a two-fer, more bang for the buck. 

It was an odd obsession. I knew no twins. They did not run in our family. I have no idea where I even got the idea, though logic says it was from reading about Romulus and Remus being suckled by a she-wolf in my well-thumbed mythology book that I checked out of my elementary school library so many times the librarian gifted it to me on the last day of 6th grade. 

Not that I thought I was destined to become a she-wolf, but you know how imagery sticks in your brain when you’re a child.

Fast forward to adulthood. In what was a true shock to us all, I struggled with infertility. Two sets of twins became a dream of the distant past; the choice of boys and girls went by the wayside. Any child at all became the goal.

When I lost the twins we’d conceived using IVF, I realized my dream was never going to happen. I never thought I’d struggle to have a family. I assumed, like so many, that it would be easy, natural, and achievable. 

I am a goal-setter and high achiever. A true Type A personality. You can imagine how infuriating it was to learn my body was betraying me. (Turns out I have Ehler’s Danlos and Celiac, which contributed to my infertility. Found that out ten years too late, sadly.) I became instead a forever mother of cats. It’s not such a bad gig. Especially when we adopted—you guessed it—twin kittens.

I channeled my energy into my writing career and birthed a number of books. I didn’t realize that I was writing twins into all of my books until a reviewer pointed it out. She was right. Before, during, and after my childbearing years, they cropped up. And then, it became a thing. I started to add them purposefully. If I couldn’t have them of my own, I could certainly write them into my stories.

There are twins in almost all my work. Identical twins. Fraternal twins. Twins who don’t know about one another. Twins with hidden pathologies, twins who act out their basest desires. Twins who were separated at birth and find each other, whose lives are eerie mimics of one another. 

I have quite a few Doppelgängers, too; twins that might have been. The complexity of a character who shares a soul with another creates confusion and excellent family dynamics, and allows for some sleight of hand when needed. Exactly what a suspense needs.

There are plenty of examples of stories with twins at their heart—mine are usually secondary to the plot so it doesn’t become a trope. It is a device that I love to use because the mirror reflection of another soul fascinates me. And of course, there are twins in A VERY BAD THING, though I can’t talk about them without spoiling the story. Not surprisingly, it was untwining the twin “situation” in the story that made the book come alive for me and ultimately drove the narrative to its inevitable conclusion.

This isn’t the only theme you’ll see in my stories. Women finding their power is also a huge component, as is finding justice for those who might not otherwise get it. These are rich veins to draw from, and my hope is always to find a path straight to the readers’ hearts, to make a connection that allows a story to come alive and creates characters you love, empathize with, and sometimes love to hate.

How about you? Do you have a favorite theme or trope in thrillers?


HANK: Oh, great question! And wasn’t one day this week National Twins Day? I know some of you are twins—tell us a twin thing!

J.T. Ellison is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than thirty novels and the Emmy Award–winning co-host of the literary TV show A Word on Words. She also writes urban fantasy under the pen name Joss Walker. With millions of books in print, her work has won critical acclaim and prestigious awards. Her titles have been optioned for television and published in twenty-eight countries. J.T. lives with her husband and twin kittens, one of whom is a ghost, in Nashville, where she is hard at work on her next novel. For more information, visit https://www.jtellison.com/.


A VERY BAD THING

From New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison comes a taut

thriller about one author at the pinnacle of her career, whose past threatens to destroy everything she has―and everyone she knows.

A great writer knows when to deliver a juicy plot twist. But for one author, the biggest twist of all is her own murder.

With a number of hit titles and a highly anticipated movie tie-in, celebrated novelist Columbia Jones is at the top of her game. Fans around the world adore her. But on the final night of her latest book tour, one face in the crowd makes the author collapse. And by the next morning, she’s lying dead in a pool of blood.

Columbia’s death shocks the world and leaves Darian, her daughter and publicist, reeling. The police have nothing to go on―at first. But then details emerge, pointing to the author’s illicit past. Turns out many people had motive to kill Columbia. And with a hungry reporter and frustrated cop on the trail, her secrets won’t stay buried long. But how many lives will they shatter as the truth comes out?