In Retreat, Jessica Jones star Krysten Ritter follows up her fiction debut, the suspenseful legal mystery Bonfire, with a twisty thriller centered on the con artist Liz Dawson, who seizes an unexpected opportunity to start a new life on the Mexican coast. We spoke with Ritter about coming up with the idea for the novel, her attraction to complex women protagonists, and more.
What gave you the idea for this novel?
I was on a trip with my girlfriend, maybe 12 or 13 years ago, and there was this man who was saying that his girlfriend had rented a bicycle there earlier today but hadn’t seen her since. I thought, “I don't know about this. I feel like this guy is not really that concerned that his girlfriend’s missing. I think he’s planting an alibi.” As you know, I’m a storyteller, and I just imagined what it would be like to be on a retreat and get caught up in a story like that. So it went into my idea file. That was the original concept for Retreat.
What happened with that story hook? And without spoiling the jaw-dropping plot developments, how early on did you work out the novel’s main twist?
It proved to be much harder than I thought. I worked on it for years and ended up just hitting a wall. Then I got a writing partner, and we figured it out. That was pretty late in the process, and was from the beautiful mind of Lindsay Jamieson, my writing partner. She was able to help me really take this idea to the next level. I'm so lucky and so grateful to have found someone who really understood what I wanted to do and could collaborate in such a beautiful way.
What appealed to you about con artists enough to make one your protagonist?
I always wanted to have a character who was Abby Williams from Bonfire but a little bit grown up. That was one idea. But I’ve always enjoyed playing around with characters who have some moral ambiguity and an interesting backstory. Is it the result of nature? Is it the result of nurture? Liz has a really hard backstory and a hard life. Her mom sucks. And I was playing with the idea of what that could look like in adulthood.
I love to play with bad girls. I love finding a way to understand why they are like this. Can we understand why these women are making these decisions? Can we get on board with it? That’s my playground. Even in my acting work, I play characters who have very questionable backstories.
Do you have another book in the works—perhaps a sequel to Retreat? And is there any adaptation in the works?
I do, and it’s not. My third book is going to be a very different thriller. I have strong connections to the kids for cash scandal in Pennsylvania that happened many years ago. I'm kind of playing in that arena.
I do think that a sequel to Retreat is a possibility. I've already been talking about film and TV rights. People are even asking me about what season 2 could look like. I have so many ideas. The adaptation feels very clear and doable to me, and I would absolutely be involved in the adaptation. Scheduling is always a question, but I would love to have as much involvement as possible in the screen adaptation, which feels very likely. So, fingers crossed.
