Megan Collins continues to engage readers in her fifth thriller, CROSS MY HEART (Atria, January 2025). In the novel, we meet somewhat whacky but lovable Rosie. We asked the author how she makes Rosie so relatable, how she hooks us into the story, and how she filled the story with at least a half dozen surprising plot points.
“That was a little bit tricky,” Megan admits. “I knew she was going to be a little bit extreme with some things, and I didn’t want to lose readers. I needed to have them still want to be invested in her journey.”
Listen to what she has to say about her writing process.
Collins on character-building:”I need to just know what the charaxter wants, what their goal is…and if they are not the main charter, what is their purpose in the story”
Collins on story plotting: “I brought in all these different sticky notes that were color coded, and I just started putting things up on the wall…”
Collins on becoming a writer: “Make sure you really know what it is about this [writig] that brings you joy, and what it is abouit this that feeds you, because the road to publication and even past publiction is so bumpy…”
CROSS MY HEART is a suspenseful novel about a heart transplant patient who becomes romantically obsessed with her donor’s husband. Rosie has his wife’s heart; the one she wants is his.
The author of The Family Plot brings her signature “taut, emotionally charged, and propulsive” (Jeneva Rose, New York Times bestselling author) prose to this latest work.
Rosie Lachlan wants nothing more than to find The One.
A year after she was dumped in her wedding dress, she’s working at her parents’ bridal salon, anxious for a happy ending that can’t come soon enough. After receiving a life-saving heart transplant, Rosie knows her health is precious and precarious. She suspects her heart donor is Daphne Thorne, the wife of local celebrity author Morgan Thorne, who she begins messaging via an anonymous service called DonorConnect, ostensibly to learn more about Daphne. But Rosie has a secret: She’s convinced that now that she has his wife’s heart, she and Morgan are meant to be together.
As she and Morgan correspond, the pretense of avoiding personal details soon disappears, even if Rosie’s keeping some cards close to her chest. But as she digs deeper into Morgan’s previous marriage, she discovers disturbing rumors about the man she’s falling for. Could Morgan have had something to do with his late wife’s death? And can Rosie’s heart sustain another break—or is she next?
Cross My Heart (A Novel)
by Megan Collins
(Atria Books (January 14, 2025)
