I have always been drawn to mysteries—in the shows I watch, the books I read, the stories I write.

But when I was writing Such A Quiet Place, a story about a group of neighbors who believe they’ve solved a horrific crime on their street by piecing together their security footage, a smaller mystery appeared on my own front door camera: a car, in the dead of night, in the middle of my front yard.

We didn’t notice at first—it was the beginning of the pandemic, and we had been staying home, and it had been raining for days—so it took some time to notice the evidence left behind: the flattened shrub; the tire tracks; the pieces of plastic on the ground just under the scratches on a tree. It took even longer to go through the alerts on our doorbell camera to find the event: a screech of tires over the sound of rain, a car losing control at the intersection, skidding across the yard and ultimately coming to a halt as it connected with a tree in the yard.

There it was: the answer.

And yet, when I found this—a resolution—it did not feel resolved at all. It was entirely unsettling to realize that I had no idea this had happened days earlier, while we slept; and that it could’ve been so much worse.

For days, I found myself consumed by the mystery, searching for a deeper resolution.

I imagined all the scenarios that could’ve led to this moment: Someone texting, losing control around the curve. Someone driving under the influence, falling asleep at the wheel. But then I started wondering, why was I assuming the worst? Wasn’t it just as likely the steps leading up to that moment were something entirely different? Someone coming home from a long shift, maybe, their brakes giving out in the rain. Or an emergency: someone rushing to the aid of a friend who had called. Someone alone. Someone afraid.

Without a resolution, all these possibilities remain.

But I’ve come to accept that we are surrounded by mysteries every day, that fragments of other people’s lives cross into ours in brief moments in time, and that so many mysteries remain inherently unsolvable.

Maybe this is why I’m drawn to these stories, to solving the mysteries on the page. Not just what happened, but why, and how. Avery, finding out what happened to Sadie in , peeling back the picturesque façade of Littleport, Maine. Harper, discovering the truth buried at the heart of her idyllic neighborhood in Such A Quiet Place, revealing all the secrets of Hollow’s Edge.

If you enjoyed The Last House Guest, I think you’ll also enjoy Such A Quiet Place—both take place in a picturesque community with a layer of secrets hidden just under the surface. And both stories feature a complex relationship at the heart of a twisting mystery.

Just like the characters I write, I believe it’s in our nature to want to know. To uncover the puzzle pieces, feel them slipping into place. To unravel the mysteries that surround us—in life, and in fiction.

Learn more about Megan Miranda's latest page-turning mystery here!