Julia Spiro Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Julia Spiro
Author Julia Spiro was born and grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. After she graduated from Harvard College, she lived in Los Angeles and worked within the film industry for almost a decade.

She lives full-time in Martha’s Vineyard. Here, she enjoys clamming, fishing, scalloping, and just about anything on the beach. Julia also teaches spin classes in Edgartown and considers spinning to be her second passion.

Everyday life all around her really has had the largest impact on her writing. She doesn’t like writing at home or in some enclosed office space. Julia requires writing in a coffee shop, a cafe, or in some public library. She puts on her headphones and listens to classical music, while silently observing all of the people around her. This is crucial to her writing process.

When she hits a mental block in her writing, she casts her gaze around the room and finds inspiration wondering about the lives about the different people all around her. The mom with her toddler, the couple having lunch, the person behind the counter making espressos, and the old guy that is dining all by himself. Julia finds there is an abundance of ideas and stories right in front of her, all she has to do is look around.

Martha’s Vineyard, where “Someone Else’s Secret” is set and where she lives, was a source of inspiration all by itself.

Two of the characters in the novel, Lindsey and Georgie are like Julia in their own ways. Many of the insecurities they have are Julia’s.

Her teenage self would be surprised that she let anybody actually read “Someone Else’s Secret” and she didn’t just stuff it under the mattress. During her high school years, she wrote a lot of short stories, keeping many of them to herself, only showing the occasional teacher. That said, her teenage self would probably enjoy the novel, but would want more sex scenes.

The idea for the novel comes from when she worked in Hollywood, when she was privy to a lot of whispers about abuses of power and sexual assault, but, like a lot of her peers, didn’t do anything about it.

Julia wanted the title of her novel to touch on the difficulty people face in speaking up when there has been an injustice we know about. As well as the feeling that we are somehow unable to actually do so if the truth is going to impact others negatively. Or possibly when people don’t feel like this is the truth is theirs to tell.

She wanted the title to have the word ‘secret’ in it because the story is very much about how hanging onto one secret can shape the trajectory of both our lives and ourselves. The title also poses a bit of mystery, which is another good reason she picked it. Right away, the reader knows that the story is about two young women, making the question: whose secret is it? And who has the right to tell it?

Typically, she finds the beginning of a novel to be tougher to write, since she goes back and forth with many drafts figuring out what has the strongest hook. The endings usually come much more naturally to Julia once she knows the characters and where they are going.

It was the opposite as she wrote this novel, however. She had visualized the opening scene from the start, and knew what she had wanted it to look and feel like. She just struggled on how she wanted the story to end and ended up writing multiple versions of it.

She wanted all of the characters to have justice, but she also wanted her story to be realistic and not tie up too tidy. It was a tough balance for her to reach.

Julia’s debut novel, called “Someone Else’s Secret”, was released in the year 2020, and was published by Lake Union Publishing. It is from the literary and contemporary genres.

“Someone Else’s Secret” is the first stand alone novel and was released in the year 2020. The thing about secrets is that they change their shape over time, get blurry with memory, until the truth becomes nearly lost.

The year is 2009. Georgie and Lindsey each have some high hopes for the summer they are going to spend on Martha’s Vineyard. In the recession’s wake, Lindsey, ambitious college graduate, take a job as a nanny for one influential family that might help her land a job in Boston’s exclusive art world. Georgie, the oldest kid in that family, is almost fifteen years old and is eager to find herself. She is eager for first love and she dreams of independence.

Over the course of this formative summer, the two young ladies form a close bond. Then, one night close to the lighthouse, a stunning act occurs that ensnares the both of them in the throes of a horrible secret. Their budding friendship is ruined, and neither one of them is able to speak about what happened that night for one long decade.

Until now. Both Georgie and Lindsey has to confront the past after all of this time. Their quest to get justice is going to require some costly sacrifices, however, it may also give them the much needed closure that will help them move on. All that they know for sure is that when the truth is finally revealed, their lives are going to be changed forever once more.

Julia weaves a heart-wrenching and relatable story filled with denial, secrets, lies, and redemption. This is a dizzying dance with the truth. This is both an arresting work of storytelling and a page-turning exploration of violent power dynamics that work its way through Martha’s Vineyard and some of the other summertime retreats. This one is sure to leave readers moved, haunted, and in awe of Julia’s rather taut prose.

Julia also captures the true essence of what it is really like to be female and young. Anybody looking to understand what girls are like between the ages of fourteen and 22, or want a refresher, this is the only book you will need on that.