I had the pleasure of interviewing author A.V. Geiger about her newest release, ‘Tell Me No Lies’! ‘Tell Me No Lies’ is the conclusion to her ‘Follow Me Back’ duology.

Below is a list of ‘Follow Me Back’ and ‘Tell Me No Lies’ related content that is also on my blog:

• Read my interview with Viv from last year about ‘Follow Me Back’
• Read my ARC review of ‘Follow Me Back’
• Read my ARC review of ‘Tell Me No Lies’
• Check out my playlist for ‘Follow Me Back’
• Check out my playlist for ‘Tell Me No Lies’

COURTNEY: What changed the most from the original draft of ‘Tell Me No Lies’?  Anything you can tell me about?  (If it’s a spoiler, I’ll put it at the end of the interview and mark it accordingly!)

 A.V. GEIGER (VIV): The murder victim! Without giving away any spoilers, I’ll just say that I massively underestimated the amount of editing I would have to do when I decided to make this plot change from the original version. I wanted to challenge myself and give the published sequel a fresh angle for my Wattpad readers, but I ended up rewriting large chunks of the book in order to pull it off.

COURTNEY: In ‘Tell Me No Lies’, we learn who MET is.  Did you always know who it was going to be, such as when you were writing the first book, or did you figure it out along the way?

VIV: I nailed down the whole plot for book 2, including the true identity of MET, back when I first started working on edits for book 1 (Follow Me Back). The first round of back-and-forth with my editor at Sourcebooks dealt with the plot changes for both books in the duology. That allowed me to drop little hints in book 1 and avoid any inconsistencies.

COURTNEY: What (if anything) can you tell us about your next novel?  Is it too much to hope that we might see some FMB characters appear in ‘INSTALOVE’, or in a future novel?

VIV: Nope! I decided that any survivors from the FMB books deserved some rest and relaxation after all the trauma they’ve endured. My next novel INSTALOVE will be a stand-alone YA romantic thriller with a totally new set of characters. The plot revolves around a fictional app called InstaLove, and a group of high school students who are playing it while attending a summer program for gifted teens in STEM. The main characters are Ellie Sandberg—brilliant at coding, hopelessly inept at flirting—and her InstaCrush, the gorgeous but mysterious Maddox Cruz.

 COURTNEY: What scene was your favorite to write/what scene are you most excited for readers to read?

 VIV: The kiss-y scenes will always be my favorite to write. I don’t use too many of them, but I love it when my characters are able to enjoy some happy moments in between all the angst and suspense.

 COURTNEY: Was there a scene that you absolutely loved that you had to end up cutting from the final draft?  If so, can you tell me anything about it?

 VIV: No regrets! I am not overly sentimental about my words. Deleted scenes are usually deleted for good reason, and I’m more than happy to hack away at early drafts with a weed-whacker.  At one point, I toyed with the idea of another FBI interrogation transcript to serve as an epilogue for TELL ME NO LIES, with a final massive plot twist to end the series… That would have been interesting for sure, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to be that evil!

Huge thanks to Viv for answering all of my interview questions! Make sure to go check out her books, as well as ‘INSTALOVE’ on Wattpad if you haven’t already!