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| photo: Tina Krohn | |
Christina Kovac writes psychological suspense/thrillers set in Washington, D.C. Her career began in television news, where she covered crime and politics as a news producer and editor at the Washington Bureau of NBC News for the Today Show and Nightly News. This work influenced her novels: The Cutaway and Watch Us Fall (Simon & Schuster, December 2, 2025), a work of psychological suspense that follows four best friends who get embroiled in the investigation of a reporter. Kovac lives near Washington, D.C., with her family.
Handsell readers your book in about 30 words:
Four best friends are living in a shared house in Georgetown, when one of their ex-boyfriends disappears. Police come calling, delusions hidden beneath the friendship surface, and things fall apart fast.
On your nightstand now:
Watch Us Fall comes out very soon, and I'm racing to finish my current manuscript (book three! yay!), so I'm crazy busy and a bit exhausted and reading much slower than usual, but:
The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is everything I need right now for the cool fall weather. I'm not deep into it yet, but if you loved Mexican Gothic like I did, you'll be so, so happy you picked up this book. Everything I love about Moreno-Garcia's writing is right there in the first line: "When I was a young woman, there were still witches..."
Favorite book when you were a child:
When I was very young, I read everything Nancy Drew. I have this vivid childhood memory of sitting next to my mother on the floor as we stacked her old Nancy Drew books onto my newly painted bookshelf. The smell of new paint and old books, the feel of pages under my small hand, those same pages my mother turned when she was a little girl. The timelessness of books, how they survive everything, even childhood, that's what I love as much as The Hidden Staircase.
Your top five authors:
I have degrees in English and journalism, so this is an impossible ask, but I'll tell you my favorites who are thankfully still writing at the top of their game today--Angie Kim, Lou Berney, Lily King, Liz Moore, Janelle Brown. I can't wait for what they do next.
Book you've faked reading:
The Bible. My hot take: everyone fakes this. I mean, look at this world.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Long Bright River by Liz Moore. And yes, I know, I know, The God of the Woods was the best book last year and maybe into this year, it was on the bestseller list forever, and I'm not knocking that--but hear me out: Long Bright River is her best. It tackles the most intractable problem in our country head-on. The novel makes you live through addiction that is the destroyer of worlds, so that you feel your family ripped apart, your sister lost to you, and the neighborhood you grew up in and the city you love destroyed--all while telling a pretty damn good murder mystery. Her characters are that real, and the book is that good.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Lou Berney's November Road. A little girl leans out the window of a fast car, her long hair blowing. You see her from behind. You feel like you were that girl, maybe, and that still grabs me--like: come along for the ride, you've got to see this. November Road was the first Lou Berney book I read, by the way, and I've now read everything he's published. Just a great, great writer.
Book you hid from your parents:
Ken Follett's Eye of the Needle. A spy thriller. At 12 years old, I was like, why can't I read it? By the way, never tell anybody not to read something--that's the exact book they'll steal, and I did. It was a worn paperback, and turns out, wowza, there was a very sexy sex scene in it--who knew? I read that scene about 12 more times before slipping it back in its spot on the high shelf.
Book that changed your life:
Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca made me want to write psychological suspense. I read the novel as a kid before I could really understand it--but I loved it, and I still can't figure out why. The main character is so weak she doesn't even have a name. Her husband is awful. The bad girl is fascinating, but oh by the way, she's dead so we never see her. And yet... and yet... I've read it at least four or five more times since I was a kid. I know the twist is coming, and it still catches my breath. I get a different read each time, and I just love how the meaning changes based on who you are now and what you bring to it as a reader, and I still wonder, how did du Maurier do that? What magic is this?
Favorite line from a book:
"Beauty is terror," from Donna Tartt's The Secret History. I don't entirely understand what she's saying, which I think is why the line works and why it stays with you. You puzzle over it for years.
Five books you'll never part with:
I have entire shelves of books from which I will never, ever part (much to my husband's horror). But if there was a fire, and I could only grab five books? The Secret History by Donna Tartt, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, Happiness Falls by Angie Kim, and Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow--because while they're all great books, they all mean something more personal to me than what's contained within their cover.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Probably du Maurier's Rebecca as an adult writer, so I can feel that twist for the first time with knowing, writer eyes. Actually, I think I'll go pick it up now and give it a go. Maybe I can finally figure out its magic.