Mt. Lebanon author Sara Shepard back with twisty thriller ‘Nowhere Like Home’
Sara Shepard used to work with a dog rescuer in Tucson, Arizona, whose rural residence was surrounded by miles of mostly empty desert. “Man, if something happened, you’re really stuck out here!” the Mt. Lebanonbased author recalled.
“It was beautiful ... but really creepy, really quiet, you were just not around anybody else. I always knew that I would use that for something, because it’s just so perfect and scary.”
Shepard ended up making a vast expanse of Arizona desert the main setting for “Nowhere Like Home,” her new novel debuting on Tuesday. It follows an overwhelmed young mother who joins an isolated “mommune” at the behest of an old friend. Naturally, long-buried secrets are exposed and past transgressions come back to haunt everyone involved.
Fans of Shepard’s previous work can hang out with her during a Monday launch event at Bloomfield’s White Whale Bookstore. They’ll probably be right at home with “Nowhere Like Home,” which feels like exactly what would (and ultimately did) happen if the author behind the “Pretty Little Liars” and “Lying Game” series wrote her version of “Gone Girl.”
“I feel like there’s a big ‘Pretty Little Liars’ connection to this book as far as a manipulative friend,” Shepard said. “That’s why I’ve been like, ‘Hey, if you like that series, you’ll like what these people are up to!’”
Though she was born in Pittsburgh and eventually settled here, Shepard spent most of her childhood in the Philadelphia area. She ended up primarily setting “Pretty Little Liars” in that part of eastern Pennsylvania because she loved the idea that “there’s all this creepy stuff going on underneath” the facade of perfection she experienced throughout the Philly suburbs.
Her 2019 novel “Reputation” took place at a fictional Pittsburgh-area college, and the 2022 Max series “Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin” was based near Western Pennsylvania. Both “Original Sin” and its upcoming followup season “Summer School” are only inspired by Shepard’s books, though she admitted that elements of the “Pretty Little Liars” show that aired on Freeform from 2010-17 did “creep over” into subsequent “PLL” novels.
“People are still interested in who ‘A’ is,” she said of that series’ enduring small-screen success. “It’s crazy!”
Soapy, twisted narratives
“Nowhere Like Home” is more akin to Shepard’s other adult fiction catalogue that includes “Reputation,” 2014’s “The Heiresses” and 2021’s “Safe in My Arms.” Its protagonist, Lenna, leaves Los Angeles with her young son for Arizona and a womenled community called Halcyon where her former friend, Rhiannon, is staying.
Lenna’s present-day adventure is interwoven with flashbacks to her time with Rhiannon and the more mysterious Gillian, whose motivations become increasingly clearer via a series of Instagram posts. “Nowhere Like Home” also switches perspectives a few times as Halcyon’s true nature and its many other surprises are slowly revealed.
Shepard knows that her calling card is crafting the “sort of soapy and twisted” narratives that can beguile teenage and adult readers alike. With “Nowhere Like Home,” she wanted to explore life in a remote collective, how intense even platonic relationships can become and “what happens when friendships fall apart.”
As a self-professed fan of novels like Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl” and Paula Hawkins’ “The Girl on the Train,” Shepard knew she couldn’t cut corners on the twists and turns.
“I feel like people are doing that at a higher and higher level,” she said. “You don’t know who’s reliable and who to trust. I think that was Gillian and her social media posts.”
She could see “Nowhere Like Home” being adapted for visual media one day, especially since most chapters are already written as self-contained scenes. Unlike “Pretty Little Liars,” Shepard thinks this story would work best as a movie because “it’s very start to finish.” There’s also a possibility that a character or two from “Nowhere Like Home” could return in future novels.
At this point, Shepard just hopes that folks enjoy her new novel and that it may encourage anyone who’s struggling to seek out mental health care rather than a potentially shady commune.
She also knows how bleak Pittsburgh winters can feel and emphasized the much different climate portrayed in her novel. “It’s like an escape, but it’s also a nightmare.”