Cate Holahan
Author Interview - Cate Holahan
Author of The Kidnapping of Alice Ingold
Alice Ingold has been kidnapped. Call the police. Alert the media. You can’t play this game without all the pieces.
Beautiful, blond, and immensely privileged, Alice Ingold is the perfect victim for a true-crime obsessed culture―and for a masked duo with a singular purpose. Instead of a demand for ransom, her captors have a riddle, and they’re inviting the entire country to solve it.
No one is more invested in the search than Alice’s parents: Catherine, a socialite with obscene generational wealth, and Brian, a visionary AI tech guru. But while Brian turns to machines to solve the problem, Catherine tries to crowdsource the solution, stopping at nothing to bring her daughter home. And America isn’t just watching the story unfold…it’s playing along. The nationwide scavenger hunt for Alice is on.
As an increasingly desperate Catherine strives to understand each new clue, a complex picture of the crime develops. Soon, everyone will see the kidnapping of Alice Ingold for what it is―and Alice won’t be the only one who will need saving.
Author Interview - Cate Holahan
Author I draw inspiration from:
Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl. While I love Gone Girl, I've read everything Gillian Flynn has ever written and adore her style. I love the voiciness of her characters -- the way she combines humor and intelligence in their inner thoughts. I am particularly awed by the three dimensional chess aspect of her writing. She pens characters whose words have hidden or deeper meanings that only become evident after the twist is revealed later in the story.
Author Interview - Cate Holahan | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book:
By the pool, on the beach, in bed.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with:
While I shudder to think of the circumstances that might lead me to getting into an elevator with Offred, from The Handmaid's Tale, getting stuck with her would be a transformative experience for me. Speaking to a woman who manages to find humor, strength, and memories of joy in such terrible, dystopian circumstances would give me a different perspective on my own struggles and help me develop a better tolerance for challenges. I also like to think that we'd figure out a way to make it out of Gilead--or at least how to poison Commander Fred.
Author Interview - Cate Holahan | Book Character I’d Like to be Stuck in an Elevator With
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author:
When I was seven, I wrote a short, illustrated children's book and sent it to Scholastic. It was rejected. When I got that disappointing letter and still desperately wanted to write, I knew I'd be a writer. It wasn't a matter of being published for me. I had a need to tell the story that I wanted to tell, a desire to communicate that transcended any accolade.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook:
I love that my ebooks are on my phone and so I'm never without a story. Similarly, the portability of a paperbacks -- and the fact that I can bring them to the beach -- are a draw for me. I like the way reading, whether it be in paperback, hardcover or ebook format, forces attention and enables me to imagine a movie in my mind. Audiobooks are great for a different reason. The talent of the voice actors adds new dimensions, highlighting nuances and other aspects of the characters that I might not personally focus on while reading. Audio books also enable me to listen to a story while driving or doing laundry, allowing me to transport myself somewhere else while completing the daily chores that we all must to check off the list to keep our lives in order. And what can beat the durability of a hardcover and the way it looks on a bookshelf? There's something nice about intellectual furniture, if only for the way it advertises aspects of oneself to guests and provides immediate conversation fodder.
The last book I read:
The last book I read was Megan Abbott's El Dorado Drive. I loved the descriptions and the way Megan invents totally original and evocative analogies.
Author Interview - Fiona Davis | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer:
I write and rewrite on the computer. For me, thinking through my fingers via typing helps me get my ideas out. Also, I tend to edit/rewrite in the mornings and write in the evenings through the night so it enables me to transition from one mode to the next. I also type way faster than I could ever scribble anything down on paper. When on a roll, it feels like I'm watching a movie in my mind and transcribing it in real time. I can only do that while typing a hundred words a minute.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with:
Growing up, I think I'd have been good friends with Holden Caulfield. Now as an adult that realizes some of the world has to be this frustrating, I think I'd be friends with Kellye Garrett's protagonist in Like A Sister's Lena Scott. She's witty and principled and, above all, loyal to family. I like to think that's a lot like me.
Author Interview - Cate Holahan | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a:
In a prior life, before becoming a fiction writer, I was a journalist for more than a decade. I covered crime and local politics, breaking news, and later technology business.
Favorite decade in fashion history:
I also write the Young Rich Widows series with Vanessa Lillie and Kimberly Belle. We set it in the 80s and spend a good amount of time steeped in that eras fashion sense. I've come to have a good appreciation for sequins and shoulder pads and lace, even if I wouldn't be able to wear any of it now.
Place I’d most like to travel:
I'm a Jamaican citizen as well as an American citizen, and I love going to Jamaica on a regular basis. I'm biased, but I think it's landscape and people are some of the most beautiful in the world. When I'm there with the sun on my face, eating ackee and saltfish and looking out over the ocean, I feel connected to my grandparents and so many others whom I've lost and miss.
My signature drink:
Rum punch. It's sweet and it packs a literal punch, especially if you overindulge. What's life without a bit of danger.
Favorite artist:
I love Shonda Rhimes. She creates characters that are so real and layered that they not only feel real to me, but make me reconsider my own reactions and attitudes towards things. The best art should make us take a different look at ourselves.
Number one on my bucket list:
I really would love to be in the writers' room for a television show. Some of my favorite experiences writing have been breaking down story with other talented authors, listening to their perspectives and ideas, then synthesizing all of that with my own feelings and creations into something new and exciting.
Anything else you'd like to add:
In addition to being an author and a journalist, I also went back to school during COVID for a screenwriting degree, enrolling in NYU Tisch and receiving a Masters in Dramatic Writing. I mention it because one of the things I'm most proud of is my commitment to storytelling and that I had the guts to put myself in a vulnerable situation with a lot of criticism when I turned forty. An older dog can learn new tricks, and I'm thankful that I went and learned a new form of writing, as well as spent some time thoroughly examining how and why I tell stories.
Find more from the author:
cateholahan.com
facebook.com/cate.holahan.2025/
https://www.instagram.com/cateholahan/
About Cate Holahan:
Cate Holahan
Cate Holahan is a USA Today Bestselling thriller/suspense author and screenwriter.
She has seven standalone novels and is co-author of the #1 Audible bestselling series Young Rich Widows, and its sequels Desperate Deadly Widows and Wicked Wanted Widows, plus a planned fourth installment.
Her novels have been translated into multiple languages and optioned for television. Her fifth novel, Her Three Lives, was a Good Morning America book club selection and her second book, The Widower's Wife, was a Kirkus Best Book of 2016. Her third novel, Lies She Told, was a Kirkus Best Book of 2017, as well as a Book of the Month Club Sept. 2017 selection.
She’s written two original movies for MarVista Entertainment which have aired on Fox’s Tubi: Deadly Estate (March 2023) and Midnight Hustle (August 2023). She has multiple scripts being shopped by production companies.
In a former life, she was a journalist and TV producer. She has written for BusinessWeek Magazine, New Jersey's The Record Newspaper, The Boston Globe, MSN Money and CNBC.
A bi-racial Jamaican and Irish American writer, Cate is a member of Crime Writers of Color, Sisters in Crime, and The Authors Guild. She has an MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts ’23 and a BA from Princeton University.
She lives in Tenafly, NJ, with her husband, two daughters, and two dogs, and spends many a break in Jamaica, where she’s also a citizen.
