About Hallie Ephron

Writer, writing teacher Hallie Ephron…

New York Times bestselling author Hallie Ephron, Edgar Award finalist and five-time finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, writes books she hopes readers can’t put down. Recently she was named the Dr. Herb Voigt Writer-inResidence for the Milton Public Library.

Her newest suspense novel, Careful What You Wish For (August, 2019), with its echoes of Marie Kondo life-changing decluttering tips, explores the relationships built by professional organizers and their clients—showing just how easily the lines between professional and personal can be blurred. In it, Emily Harlow is a professional organizer who helps people declutter their lives; she’s married to man who can’t drive past a yard sale without stopping. Sometimes she find herself wondering if he sparks joy.

In a starred review, Publisher’s Weekly called it “outstanding.” Reviewing it for TIME magazine, Jamie Lee Curtis wrote, “Careful What You Wish For is not scary–it’s thrilling and suspenseful. … And I found a compelling companion to Emily, a modern-day grown-up Nancy Drew in a sh-tty car and a ponytail, as she searches for her own purpose while hunting down the perpetrator of the emerging crime. She is a friend we would all want to keep–messes included.”

Her You’ll Never Know, Dear (June, 2017, Wm. Morrow) is set in South Carolina. It tells the story of a little girl’s disappearance and the porcelain doll that may hold the key to her fate. It was named a finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, an Earphones Award winner, and one of the “Top 10 Mystery and Suspense” audiobooks of 2017 by Audiofile.

In Night Night, Sleep Tight, Hallie takes her experiences growing up in Beverly Hills in a family of writers and weaves them into a suspense novel with echoes of a scandalous true crime. The novel was InStyle Magazine’s #1 “Page-turning Pick.” In a starred review, Publisher’s Weekly said, “Old Hollywood glamour, scandals, and lies infuse this captivating thriller.” Good Housekeeping (as “addictive” as Gone Girl) picked it as its top page turner for April. Bookreporter reviewer called it, “An extremely impressive work. The plotting and character development read as if they could have been transplanted from an unpublished Raymond Chandler novel.

Her first suspense standalone was Never Tell a Lie (Wm. Morrow, 2009). In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called it “stunning” and a “deliciously creepy tale of obsession.” USA Today: “You can imagine Hitchcock curling up with this one.” It was adapted for film as “And Baby Will Fall” for the Lifetime Movie Network.

She followed up with Come and Find Me, the story of a reclusive former hacker who thinks she’s found safety on the Internet. When her sister disappears she has to brave the real world. Mystery Scene called it “Psychologically astute and emotionally gripping. “

Set in the Bronx with a view of the Empire State Building, her next novel, There Was an Old Woman, tells a story of trust and betrayal, deception and madness. In it, a young woman and a very old woman connect across generations in spite of, or perhaps because, they are not related. It garnered rave reviews. Washington Post book reviewer Maureen Corrigan: “For those who love Gotham and abhor gore, There Was an Old Woman is the perfect thriller lite.” New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen calls it “an absolute must read. I devoured this in one ravenous gulp.”

Hallie teaches writing at workshops and writing conferences across the country and abroad. A REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION of her Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel (Writers Digest Books), is widely available. It was nominated for Edgar and Anthony awards. Lee Child called it “the best how-to guide I have ever seen — I just wish I could have read it twenty years ago.”

An award-winning crime fiction book reviewer, Hallie wrote an ON CRIME column for the Boston Globe for more than ten years.

Hallie’s Amazon Author Page


Books by Hallie Ephron

Suspense fiction:

  • Careful What You Wish For (Wm. Morrow, 2019)
  • You’ll Never Know  Dear (Wm. Morrow, 2017)
  • Night Night, Sleep Tight (Wm. Morrow, 2015)
  • “Photoplay: A Story of Suspense (Witness Impulse, February 10, 2015)
  • There Was an Old Woman (Wm. Morrow, 2013)
  • Come and Find Me (Wm. Morrow, 2011)
  • Never Tell a Lie (Wm. Morrow, 2009)

Hallie’s Edgar-nominated how-to-write book:

  • Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel: REVISED AND EXPANDED (Writers Digest Books, 2017)

Dr. Peter Zak mystery series by G. H. Ephron, co-authored with Donald Davidoff:

  • Amnesia (St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2000)
  • Addiction (St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2001)
  • Delusion (St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2002)
  • Obsessed (St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2003)
  • Guilt (St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2005)

Hallie on growing up EPHRON  in “O” the Oprah Magazine

Hallie writes about growing up in Hollywood in a family of writers in the March, 2013 issue of “O” The Oprah Magazine.


Hallie talks about her writing


Podcasts & radio interviews

Podcast with Mark Combs on Public Display of Imaginatiion

Podcast with Hank Garner on Author Stories

Radio interview with Mat Schafer on Boston Sunday Review

Podcast with Nancie Clare on SPEAKING OF MYSTERIES

Radio interview with Barbara Demarco-Barrett on WRITERS ON WRITING KUCI-FM