Lemondrop

As the editor in chief of Cosmopolitan, Kate White presides over pages and pages of red-hot sex tips, perky pink makeup picks, and flirty floral fashion finds.

But as a best-selling author -- she's written five books starring sassy celebrity-crime journalist / amateur sleuth Bailey Weggins -- White's tastes aren't quite as bright and cheery: an after-dark Central Park slaying, a muddy mummified corpse, a burnt-to-a-crisp B-list actor ... And in her new psychological thriller, "Hush" (out March 2 from HarperCollins), White sends her heroine, marketing consultant Lake, straight into a maelstrom of sex, lies, murder and embryo abuse.

"I've always loved the macabre," confesses White. "While on vacation last week I read 'The Only Living Witness,' about Ted Bundy. I really enjoy anything to do with crime." She continues, with a laugh, "And I don't know why -- I had a very happy childhood!" (Actually, White's choice isn't so surprising. A new study from the University of Illinois discovered that when it comes to reading, women are far more interested in criminal minds than men.)

So we asked the Queen of the Macabre to give us the lowdown on her first stand-alone suspenser -- fret not, fans, there are more Bailey books to come! -- and how she balances life as a fun-and-fearless magazine editor and spine-chilling mystery writer.

Lemondrop: Why did you decide to break away from Bailey?
Kate White: I loved doing the Bailey books, and I've got another one in with Harper, but I guess kind of like with couples -- as we talk about in Cosmo -- sometimes you need a little break. And I was interested in doing a different genre. I loved the idea of a psychological thriller. Though [Bailey] sometimes does find herself in some physical jams, you never feel threatened by them. I love the idea of just making it scary! I loved at night falling asleep and really in a sense scaring myself silly.

How did you pick the setting -- a fertility clinic?
For some reason I wanted it [to be] medical. A friend of mine had really been struggling with fertility issues, and I thought that would be a really interesting world. Both the Octomom situation and this case of the woman who gave birth to the baby that turned out to be biologically not hers came out after I turned the book in.

What kind of research did you do? That had to be pretty intense.
There's a center that offers workshops to the public. I was at one of them and this woman says, "Aren't you Kate White?" [Laughs] Doesn't she respect my privacy? It was really kind of funny.

I read a few books, and I did a lot of research online. Not only things that were written, but also I went to lots of sites and saw the way the pitches were done. And I interviewed a number of women who had been through the process. There are some aspects of it that are just chilling. There are places where, if you want donor eggs, you can go for top of the line. People are interested in doctoral eggs. You want to do as much as you can to guarantee that your kids going to go to Harvard or Brown. Because it isn't super-regulated, there is room for abuse and mistakes.

In your acknowledgments, you thank a lot of doctors, medical examiners, detectives -- loads of experts. How do they help you out?
As I go along, I might use a couple of people who I've used regularly to start the ball rolling. There's a great guy I knew growing up called Paul Paganelli, who is head of an ER. For instance, in this book, [the main character] Lake gets hit in the head with a shovel. So what I would talk to him about is what would that blow do, and what would they do in the ER. In this case, I think I had suggested the wrong kid of antibiotic, and he said, "No, we would get this."

What's really fun is when you're dealing with a bigger issue and you find someone who's an expert in that field. In the book I'm doing now, it's about people who drowned in a river, and I interviewed a guy who's an expert in how rivers move and what can happen to bodies in rivers. This guy has an area of expertise in an area I didn't even know existed! And they're always so willing to talk to you. For "Hush," there was a wonderful woman called Mary Dodge. She is an associate professor at University of Colorado–Denver; she wrote a book about some terrible abuses at a fertility clinic. In interviewing her, even though she was just translating information, I got a little plot twist.

How do you keep coming up with these characters and these situations?
When I was first starting -- I knew I always wanted to write mysteries -- I remember feeling, Where am I going to get the ideas? Like a lot of mystery writers in general, I keep a big file. Any crime stories I find fascinating I stick in there. And I sit in a chair one afternoon, and I go through it. Sometimes there will be a story that will be one little germ of an idea.

And a lot of writing teachers have talked about this: the strategy of "What If?" I went to the doctor once with a back problem. He said, "Tell me about your neck injury. You had a really severe neck injury as a child." I said, "No, actually, I didn't," and he said, "You have a neck injury like someone has who dove into a swimming pool with no water." I called my mother and she said, "No," and I started to wonder ... What if you had something like that? What if someone had really injured you as a child?

The other thing -- Twyla Tharp talks about it in her book on creativity and Laura Day, who wrote "Practical Intuition," talks about it -- you put a question up to the universe. "I've got to write another mystery. What the hell is the plot going to be?" And your subconscious starts toying with ideas for you. So, I'm going to take a day off, I'm going to get a facial and I'm going to relax. And I started looking at all the tools and I thought, Boy, you could kill someone with one of those things! And I realized, I'm going to write a mystery about a spa, ["A Body to Die For"].

How did you get into mystery writing?
Like a lot of women who are baby boomers, Nancy Drew was one of our role models. There were no Hillary Clintons or Lady Gagas -- who are inspirations in different ways. My mother was a great role model because she worked and she was dynamic and interesting and incredibly well-read, but there weren't that many out there. Nancy Drew was the gutsiest girl you ever knew. She had a boyfriend but it seemed like she could have cared less about him. She had this great little car and she solved these mysteries around her town. I wasn't just inspired by her kick-ass attitude; I loved the idea of solving the mystery, the puzzle, finding the clue.

How do you juggle it? It's not like running Cosmo isn't a full-time job.
That's probably the question I get asked the most. If you make the choice -- there's a little dream of mine that I want to make sure happens, maybe it's designing your own jewelry line or writing a screenplay -- you have to let some things go. So I told myself, I'm never going to learn to play tennis, I'm not going to learn a second language, I gave up shopping. And because I had kids I didn't want it to impact them. They're in college now. For the first years, I would get up really early Saturdays and Sundays and I would try to write one hour. I try to write a page a day during the week. That somehow doesn't make it seem as daunting, and it kind of forces you to the end. And on weekends I try to write a good six pages every Saturday and every Sunday. So I figure by the time I'm done with the week I've got a chapter. I think you just have to be careful of trying to take on too much. I would never say, "I'm going to write the whole day!"

So has Scott Brown responded to your invitation to reprise his college Cosmo centerfold?
[Laughs] Not directly. I did send him flowers. But on Barbara Walters he said that he didn't think he would have become a senator without it! His point is that hit got him a ton of publicity. He treated it not as anything he was embarrassed about. I think it was bold and gutsy. Maureen Dowd put it well -- do you want to be Ivy-league cool or Cosmo hot?


Melissa Rose Bernardo is a freelance writer and former staffer at Entertainment Weekly.

More About Authors on Lemondrop:
+ Want to Write a Novel? Best-Selling Author Adriana Trigiani Can Help
+ Q&A With Helen Fielding, Author of 'Bridget Jones's Diary'
+ Meet Julie Klausner -- Author, Comedian, Queen of Bad Dates