Jenna Blum Quotes

What surprised me about 'The Casual Vacancy' was not just how good it was, but the particular way in which it was good.

My #1 job as a thriller author is to give readers the best white-knuckle thrill ride I am capable of. I am first and foremost in the entertainment business. If that suspenseful ride is also terrifying because it hits really close to home, then I am once again doing what I am supposed to do as a thriller author.

I think predictability is built into any good novel in some way - you begin reading Anna Karenina and you know pretty much what's going to happen at the end. But that doesn't mean you know what's going to happen in the middle. For me, it's that sense of what happens in the middle that's important.

Every now and again, a script comes along that you just can't put down, and 'Deep State' is exactly that - a great example of the best kind of writing.

Reading 'The Last Days of Magic' is like playing a well-constructed video game.

I got sent the script [ Before I Go To Sleep] as usually happens and you have a little look. I know it's a bit of a cliché, but it was absolutely a page turner. I mean, I wanted to find out what happened next.

When I was writing 'The Luminaries,' I read a lot of crime novels because I wanted to figure out which ones made me go, 'Ah! I didn't know that was coming!'

I got halfway through 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.' I don't get it at all. What's the big thrill? It's boring.

'The Crimson Petal and the White' is a book, and it will win or lose the trust of each reader when they begin reading its pages. That relationship will go on.

Anything I've ever read by John Irving has been really well written.

I do love Shirley Jackson, but I don't deserve to be named in connection with her. I remember reading 'The Haunting of Hill House' and having goosebumps for hours. The way she builds narrative pressure in that book is just amazing. I think you could reread it a few times and actually go out of your mind.

Plan for each episode to be a satisfying experience, but still leave the audience thinking, 'Oh, my God! Now what?'

I'm always in search of those books where you don't want to stop reading, and 'Me Before You' is at the top of that list.

When I read 'Room,' I absolutely loved it, and I thought I knew how to make it.

I've never managed to get very far with Henry James.

It's a good thing about George R.R. Martin: He's prepared to kill off the main guys. You don't get the feeling that the good guy is going to last forever, like James Bond.

I recently read a collection of stories called 'Boondock Kollage,' by Regina Bradley. The stories follow multiple characters through the South, through the past and present. I loved reading that book: the first time I read the opening story, I was breathless and incoherent.

On the page, 'Gone Girl' was a literary game: a tennis match of alternating chapters from Nick and Amy, with the reader offering to take each character's side every few pages.

I remember reading 'The Guest' and thinking, 'This is going to be something!'

I firmly believe that there is no better thriller writer than Harlan Coben.

Attending a book group is always a salutary experience for a writer. There's no guarantee that the people there will have enjoyed your book, and, as anyone who has taken part in a book group will know, half the fun is in ripping a book you haven't liked to shreds.

I remember reading 'Catcher in the Rye,' but I don't think I got it.

I read 'Song of Solomon' by Toni Morrison in college, and it just blew my mind.

I think the best fiction is a form of psychological suspense, even though I don't really write in that idiom.

I've waited for a novel from Charles Yu with eager anticipation since being bowled over by his 2006 short story collection, 'Third Class Superhero.'