Welcome to the Book Marks Questionnaire, where we ask authors questions about the books that have shaped them.
This week, we spoke to He Started It author Samantha Downing.
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Book Marks: First book you remember loving?
Samantha Downing: Ramona & Beezus by Beverly Cleary.
BM: Favorite re-read?
SD: The Partner by John Grisham.
BM: What book do you think your book is most in conversation with?
SD: None—I won’t insult anyone by naming them!
BM: A book that blew your mind?
SD: The Whisper Man by Alex North.
BM: Last book you read?
SD: Lock Every Door by Riley Sager.
BM: A book that made you cry?
SD: None. I don’t read books like that!
BM: What book from the past year would you like to give a shout-out to?
SD: A Nearly Normal Family by M. T. Edvardsson.
BM: A book that actually made you laugh out loud?
SD: Lamb by Christopher Moore.
BM: What’s one book you wish you had read during your teenage years?
SD: On Writing by Stephen King.
BM: Favorite book to give as a gift?
SD: The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore.
BM: Classic book you hate?
SD: It’s hard to single one out. Many of the books we consider classics are so sexist, classist, and racist that I find them difficult to read at all.
BM: Classic book on your To Be Read pile?
SD: Ulysses by James Joyce.
BM: What’s a book with a really great sex scene?
SD: I have no idea!
BM: Favorite book no one has heard of?
SD: Shake Down the Stars by Frances Donnelly.
BM: Favorite book of the 21st century?
SD: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.
BM: Favorite book you were assigned in high school?
SD: In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway.
BM: Book(s) you’re reading right now?
SD: The Chain by Adrian McKinty
BM: Favorite children’s book?
SD: I don’t know anything about children’s books!
BM: Book you wish would be adapted for a film/tv show?
SD: The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware
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Samantha Downing is the author of the bestselling My Lovely Wife, nominated for the Edgar, ITW, and Macavity awards for Best Debut Novel. Amazon Studios and Nicole Kidman’s Blossom Films have partnered to produce a feature film based on the novel. She currently lives in New Orleans, where she is furiously typing away on her next thriller.
Samantha Downing’s He Started It is out now from Berkley
Further Reading:
10 of the Most Morally Bankrupt Narrators in Fiction by Samantha Downing
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