Ashley Winstead’s Letter to Librarians

In HOT GIRL MURDER CLUB, Ashley Winstead writes a buzzy, bloody new thriller of about success, sisterhood, and demanding justice… by any means necessary. In her letter to librarians, she shares her childhood memories of spending her time in different libraries as her family moved around, and how the library has shaped everything she’s done.

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Dear Librarian,

The privilege of sharing my books with you is never lost on me, nor is the deliciousness of the full-circle moment. As the daughter of a Navy officer, I spent my childhood moving every two years. For a terribly shy kid, this was torture. My only memory from one whole year of elementary school is the linoleum floor, because I spent the year staring at my feet. What saved me—what kept my heart full and my imagination soaring—were libraries.

I was blessed with great libraries and librarians growing up. At my favorite Naval base, there was actually a library on the base. (Shoutout to Pt. Mugu, CA!) I was given permission to walk there by myself on weekends, and at age ten, it was the most thrilling thing to ever happen to me. I practically lived in that library. I would walk home balancing stacks of books so tall that I couldn’t see over them—SWEET VALLEY HIGH and BABYSITTER’S CLUB and Christopher Pike were my favorites. When I was fifteen and living in a new town in Florida, my local library awarded me first place in a poetry contest. It was the first time anyone had acknowledged my writing. It meant the world to me and lit a fire.

If you’d told me back then that one day I would be able to walk into a library and see my own books on the shelves, I would’ve been gobsmacked.

So I want to say thank you, first and foremost, for the work you do supporting your communities, supporting art, and supporting authors. I’m so proud that my previous books have been chosen as LibraryReads and Loan Star picks, that I’ve had the honor of traveling to libraries to do book talks and connect with readers, that I’ve been invited as a speaker on librarian podcasts. I could easily spend the rest of my career trying to give back to libraries an iota of what they’ve given me.

I’m also very proud to share my latest thriller with you. Like all of my books, HOT GIRL MURDER CLUB was inspired by a constellation of ideas. One of them was the lore surrounding Taylor Swift’s song “Vigilante Shit” and her rumored takedown of the record exec Scooter Braun. I saw paparazzi pictures of Swift and her girl gang going out to dinner and thought: what if they were actually making secret deals to take down each other’s nemeses, like a young, hot, Hollywood version of Strangers on a Train? And what if they were too good at it, and their growing power woke the dragon? It’s a book about what it means to be a young woman inheriting the world from corrupt forefathers, and trying to force change. And you wouldn’t be wrong to suspect that my early love for the SWEET VALLEY HIGH and BABYSITTER CLUB girls is at work here. Libraries have shaped everything I do.

Thank you again for everything.

Warmly,

Ashley Winstead
Author of HOT GIRL MURDER CLUB