Interview with Ande Pliego

Brook and Sarah are joined by Ande Pliego to discuss suspense, Christie, and tropes.

Discussed and mentioned

You Are Fatally Invited (2025) Ande Pliego

The Library After Dark (2026) Ande Pliego

And Then There Were None (1939) Agatha Christie

Spells for Forgetting (2022) Adrienne Young

For more about Ande Pliego

Website: https://www.andepliego.com

Instagram

For more information

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Transcript

This transcript is generated by a computer and there may be some mis-spellings and strange punctuation. We try to catch these before posting, but some things slip through.

Sarah	Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I’m Sarah.
Brook	And I’m Brook, and we both love mystery.
Sarah	Hi, Brook.
Brook	Hi Sarah. I’m so excited. we have an interview episode today.
Sarah	Yes, this is going to be so much fun. We’re speaking with Ande Pliego and I’m really looking forward to this conversation.
Brook	Yes, I’ll introduce her. Ande Pliego began writing stories when she discovered she could actually wield her overactive imagination for good. A lover of stories with teeth she writes books involving mind games, dark humor, general murder and mayhem, and most importantly finding the hope in the dark. When not reading or writing, she can usually be found dabbling in art, scheming up her next trip, or making constant expeditions to the library.
Brook	Born in Florida, raised in France, and having left footprints all over the globe, she’s settled in the Pacific Northwest, USA, with her little son. Ande is the best-selling author of You Are Fatally Invited and The Library After Dark. Welcome, Ande.
Ande Pliego	Thank you so much. I’m so excited to chat with you all.
Sarah	So Ande, your books, The Library After Dark and You Are Fatally Invited, play with the themes that readers are familiar with from Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. A lot of authors have played with the isolation, the elimination of characters. Why do you think readers and authors are drawn to these ideas?
Ande Pliego	I think it’s um the psychology behind it. And like whether or not, you know, you like know it off off the bat, I think we’re all very interested in humans and why we do the things we do. And when you put a bunch of people in a locked room and then you turn up the heat and they start dropping, you know, dropping dead, it’s very interesting just to watch all the different reactions that can come of that. And especially, um you know, as people are trying to turn on each other to figure out who’s actually killing them off, but also, you know, wanting to survive. There’s just this, there’s so many interesting tensions. And I think it’s absolutely fascinating to read about those. And I think readers just really enjoy that, that puzzle piece and kind of like also figuring out, you know, like, oh, what would you do in this circumstance? There’s a bit of interactive element in it, I should say.
Brook	Yeah, it can also be kind of hard to pull off, right? You’re trying to keep the villain a secret because you want everybody to appear possible. So, what what’s essential to making that work as a writer?
Ande Pliego	I think the main thing is having multiple trails, multiple breadcrumbs of… red herrings. And so when I think about it, I think about it in terms of if I want the reader to be misled somewhere, then I need to know exactly what I’m misleading them to and how I want them to get there. And so, I actually plot through, I take all of my suspects and I make sure that I know how they could have done it, why they could have done it, and a couple of clues in there. And then I’ll drip feed those super slowly into the book at various points.
Ande Pliego	But you have to plan, you have to plan it all out. um A reader won’t just, well, I mean, sometimes they’ll find a trail that you didn’t plan and that’s fantastic. But generally speaking, you got to have put it there first.
Sarah	Your first two books have really played with that And Then There Were None type story. What other themes or types of mysteries, if any, would you like to explore? Or do you think that this is kind of where your, your heart is?
Ande Pliego	Well, I actually in book three, which I’m working on now, I’m exploring something a little bit different. Um, and I can’t say too much about it now because it’s still in the very, very early phases, but, leaning into that psychological element will always be key for my books.
Ande Pliego	Um, I really love to just go deep into characters’ minds and like why they do what they do and how they get to these conclusions and, how two people can have the exact same circumstances and do the most radically different things. So I’ll, I’ll always play with that. But I think the way that that unfolds will look differently in future books.
Ande Pliego	And so this, the one I’m working on now, is not so much of a puzzle box ah mystery, which is kind of what the first two were. And this one is more, actually, it’s more deeper into the psychology of the character’s mind, um which is a lot of fun, so much fun. I think other tropes and things that I would play with are actually, I really, I’m dying to write this type of mystery, but make it speculative fiction. That is on my horizon for at some point, someday, I’ll be doing that.
Brook	That’s exciting.
Ande Pliego	Thank you. I am very excited.
Brook	Well, Sarah and I recently discussed whether books are better on screen as series, ah like a a limited series or standalone films. If either of your books were adapted, how do you imagine they would work best?
Ande Pliego	I think a limited series for both of them. Just because i put so much I put so much detail into like the mystery that like having to strip it down is really difficult. And I feel like you would lose a lot of the layers. And I mean, honestly, if a screenwriter wanted to do that, I’d be very interested to see, like, okay, how do you do that? Because I tried to strip it down when I was writing it and I couldn’t do it. So, like, show me your ways.
Ande Pliego	Yes, I think a limited series would be fantastic. I don’t know if you all have seen the BBC. Oh, there’s so many versions, but there is a recent BBC version of And Then There Were None that they did. um And it’s like three episodes. Each one is like an hour and a half each. So like they’re long episodes. And it just it captured the book so well. And I think you know, if you try to shrink it down too much, you lose a lot of things. So I would, and that’s a very long way of saying I like the limited series idea.
Brook	We definitely thought that that was the case for more like, sorry, we definitely came to that conclusion for books that really go into deep character development. And I think that that describes your books a lot. Like you need to know all the nitty gritty details of all those characters to make it the most fun. I would like to see your books as limited series as well.
Ande Pliego	Thank you. Fingers crossed someday. That would be so fun
Sarah	Outside of Christie, well, I guess I’m making an assumption that Christie has shaped your approach to writing. And apart from her, what other writers have shaped writing mysteries and suspense?
Ande Pliego	Yeah, I think Lucy Foley is a huge one for me. She’s just, she’s so magnificent at having a complicated story with multiple different points of view and even multiple timelines. And she just weaves it together with this crazy perfection that just, it just crescendos together at the end. And that’s always been like, oh Like, that’s what I’m going to try. I’m trying to achieve. um So I absolutely adore her books. Love picking them apart and studying how she does it. Tana French also is, yes, she’s just a master, a master in all the ways, but I absolutely love how she writes character and dialogue and her prose. But wrapping all that up in a mystery is just, in a character driven mystery, especially is just so awe-inspiring. And so, um, so she’s hugely impactful. Also authors like, um, Ashley Winstead and Riley Sager and, um, Alex Finley, like all of their, all of their books, I’ve just, I’ve read and picked apart and tried to study like, how do they actually do this? Cause it’s so good. So those are probably a few, a very few of my top ones.
Brook	Those are authors we talk about often as well so I can see that. You know, Ande what we recently discussed this the trope in general of And Then There Were None. One of the things we mentioned was that the trope is often used in horror as well. And your second book, your newest, The Library After Dark, is a little darker [Ande Pliego: Just a little bit.] as stated in the title. Talk to us about how you see that trope being used in mystery and horror and maybe like how I feel like you sort of combined the two.
Ande Pliego	Yes. Yeah, no, I love that. And I love that readers are picking up on that. I’m a huge fan of, I think it’s what you would call more art house horror, which is kind of like that more psychological element. um Like there’s so many different shades of horror and I think it’s easy to be like, oh, it’s just the super gory slasher, you know, or like the super, you know, like possession type ones. And it’s like, actually there are so many different kinds of it. And I love that we’re getting tastes of that more into mainstream. Cause I think one of my favorite things that horror does specifically was like locked room mysteries um or locked room horror stories is that it really strips down who a character is. And it really just takes away, like it it brings um the person to their most innate self, you know, like when they’re facing their worst fears. And like, you know, usually in horror, there’s some sort of like, transgression or something that the character did in the past, which contributes to what’s going on now. And, so it’s very psychological. um And I just absolutely adore that, obviously, as I’ve said.
Ande Pliego	But I think that with The Library After Dark, because I was writing about this haunted library and these characters who um they’re all facing their worst fears in some way or another. It really made sense to lean into that. And, um, honestly, it just like the whole tone and vibe of it just felt very natural for like, oh, this is what, like, if I’m writing about fear and if we’re going through this haunted library, like it makes sense that kind of like in Haunting of Hill House, it’s, the location is a mirror of the character too and the things that they’re thinking through and having to struggle with. um And so, and I just, I’m a sucker for all of that.
Sarah	Just thinking about some of the books that you mentioned and your own books, where the story is told from multiple points of view. Do you think that that is a critical part of these types of books? Or would it work as a as a single point of view?
Ande Pliego	Yeah, I think it it completely depends on um the intent of the book and especially how much of the story and the psychology of things taps into the other characters. And so with with my with these two books, they’re both ensemble casts. So they were meant to be from multiple points of view. And each of those points of view is supposed to shed light like in a different way on what’s going on and also give clues and you know like be red herrings and all that all that fun stuff.
Ande Pliego	But my philosophy of writing multiple points of view is that if you can take it out it needs to go. And so I don’t want to just have a bunch of points of view just because that’s just what I’ve done in the past. And so that’s what I’m doing now. I really work hard to tie each and every character into the plot where if you take them out, the whole thing kind of collapses in some way or other.
Ande Pliego	It’s very tricky to do. And some things are, I mean, obviously, like, some things are stronger than others at various points. But I definitely it’s huge on my mind what I’m plotting and planning and trying to figure these characters out is how to make sure that each of them ties so deeply into the plot that they’re necessary. And I’m not just having, you know, one character who’s off side questing over there that no one cares about. And, you know, that’s just, that he he can have a um his own book later on, you know?
Brook	So you’ve talked several times about plotting, which I think in this type of story is probably necessary, but are you ever, um, surprised? Like you’ve, you’ve plotted, you’ve got it all worked out and then you’re writing and do you get surprised and have to change things along the way?
Ande Pliego	Always every single time all the way through um I I don’t think I’ve ever talked to another author who is as plotting heavy and pantsing heavy as I am. And my UK editor, bless her, she, when we were wrestling through this book and I just kept changing things and being like, “no, that’s not right. It has to be something different.”
Ande Pliego	She was like, “I’ve never worked with an author who has been, who, you know, who is so meticulous in plotting. And then it just, it’s not there,” you know, like, and I’m just like, I know that’s me. That’s my process.”
Ande Pliego	But yeah, I have to plot meticulously and then I follow my script. And then at some point, usually pretty early on, it takes a big left turn and I have to just go with it. But, that for me is just, it used to be extremely frustrating. It’s still frustrating now, but I’ve just accepted it as like, okay, this is just part of my process. And this is how I get the the best type of story.
Ande Pliego	And hopefully the story that will, um, not confuse, but that will, um, mislead readers the most too. So I just go with it and have just learned to just accept it, integrate it into my process. But yeah, the surprise all the time, the killer usually gets me. I I’m sometimes wrong about that. So.
Brook	Oh, I’m happy to hear that because your process sounds very similar to my process.
Ande Pliego	Really? Oh, that’s really interesting.
Ande Pliego	Okay, that’s good to know.
Brook	Except, I don’t let myself plot because I know that I’m going to go away from it, but I like hearing you say, I do it anyway. Even with the knowledge that I probably won’t use it to a T. And I think that that actually could help me. So thank you for that tip.
Ande Pliego	Yeah, I, I absolutely have to write things wrong a few times first before I know exactly what it’s supposed to be. And like, again, used to be really frustrating and like, oh my gosh, I’m wasting so many words and wasting stuff. Nothing is ever wasted. Like, it’s just, it’s like, I see it as like goalposts. And I’m like, I have to get to this point before I can see this point. And so if that, if that takes wrong, wrong paths, that’s okay.
Sarah	And so did it take you a while to get to that place where you gave yourself that permission to deviate from your, your meticulous plot and see where the characters take you?
Ande Pliego	Yes, absolutely. I, I always felt so much pressure to write, you know, write my plot because I plotted it all out. And I can’t tell you how many times, especially non-writers in my beginning days when, you know, I’d be foolishly sharing my woes, you know, about like, “I don’t know who the killer is or what it is.” And I’d have people just look at me and be like, why don’t you just plot it out? And I’m like, “no, no, no, you don’t understand. I did. i did. And it was wrong. And now I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Ande Pliego	And here we are. And so it’s… I always I used to feel really awkward about it and just kind of like, you know, like I’m, I’m the author. I’m supposed to know what I’m doing, you know, here and supposed to know like who the killer is and like who the victims are. Sometimes I’m wrong about that too. And now I’m just like, oh, it’s just story magic. It’s just, it does what it wants to do and you just follow it and it’ll lead you where it’s meant to be at some point.
Brook	Well, and you used the word art before, and art doesn’t get planned very easily. It, it happens, doesn’t it?
Ande Pliego	Yes. Yes, it does.
Sarah	Yeah, that’s a that’s a great point, Brook, the like messiness of art that we don’t always think about applying to writing.
Ande Pliego	Yeah. Yep. Yeah. When you’re in the arts, especially like entertainment for, but as a business, it’s so interesting to see all the different ways that it kind of clashes and also has to, you have to figure out how to make it work together, you know. Because like in some ways you’re like, yes, I’m waiting for inspiration or I need the inspiration, you know, whatnot. I need to put, be able to be able to put my heart and soul into it. And then other times it’s like, you’ve got a deadline and you have to have words on a page and you have to figure out how to make them reasonably good, you know? And so it’s just, yeah, it’s a, it’s a fascinating, fascinating dichotomy.
Brook	I think the industry sometimes discounts genre fiction as not art. And that’s one of our biggest pet peeves on the podcast because it it definitely is.
Ande Pliego	Oh, yes. Yes. it can I mean, the way I see it is like, you know, a painting is not trying to be a book, you know, and like you would never expect them to be the same thing. But if they’re each doing what they intended to do to the best of their ability and they’re successful.
Ande Pliego	Boom. That’s, that’s all, that’s all you can ask of it. And it doesn’t matter if you’re like, “oh, but I just really don’t like looking at colors” or, you know, like, “I just really don’t like, you know, reading.” It’s like, well, it’s still what it is. Like, you know, I can soapbox about that all day too. Sounds like we all can.
Sarah	Yeah, that’s great.
Sarah	So Brook and I were talking recently about, And Then There Were None. And I mentioned that I reread it every now and again and try to leave enough time because I don’t have a great memory. Try to leave enough time so that I, I don’t remember all of the plot points. And, and um you know, I’m, I’m surprised that at, at the ending. I think maybe now I’ve read it enough times that it’s not so much of a surprise, but, is there a book or a series that you wish you could read again for the first time?
Ande Pliego	Oh, probably, oh man there’s there’s so many, honestly. um But probably Spells for Forgetting by Adrienne Young was one of those for me. It’s a small-town mystery set in the Pacific Northwest. It’s got some magical realism elements to it, but the mystery of it and the way that she weaves multiple timelines, points of view, everything together just has just this epic ending to it all. And um that’s one of the one of the books that gave me like major chills. And I was just like, “that’s just perfection”, you know. it’ So, yeah, that one for sure.
Brook	So Ande, are you a daily writer? Do you have a very structured way to produce a book?
Ande Pliego	I used to once upon a time, but I am a single mom now. And so trying to figure out, you know, like how to balance all the things has been an adjustment the last few months. And so my schedule is really, ah up in the air right now. Especially with like book launch for this book. Um, a lot of my writing time has been going towards that, which I love and is, is amazing, but I’m so itching to get back to book three. um And so I’m hoping in the summer, I’ll be able to have, figure out more of a steady routine where I really try to write every day. Like when I’m in the middle of something, I just, I have to have that momentum going and it’s really hard for me to pick it up after I’ve kind of like had to stop for a while.
Ande Pliego	So hopefully I’ll be able to figure that out a little bit more. um And consistency is really important for life circumstances. I don’t have as much right now, but I also can’t not write. So it’s going to get done somehow, some way, somewhere in there.
Brook	Ande, I love the setting for this latest book because I’m a ah library lover too, as I’m sure all three of us are. Tell us how you decided to make the setting for the book a haunted library.
Ande Pliego	This book, it really went through a lot of incarnations, a lot of different versions of the idea, because it was my first book working with my editors um and like suddenly having a team of people from ground zero, like from the very concept, which was very new to me.
Ande Pliego	And so it went through a lot of different incarnations. But once I landed on the library aspect of it, definitely knew to lean that we’d be leaning into like the dark academia element of it because books, you know, and books and secrets and forbidden knowledge and all these things are just so much fun to play with. And combining that in a mystery was just like, it was just, it was a great match.
Ande Pliego	And so I really wanted to go hard on the library aspect and really think of like what like if I could build a library you know like what are all the themed rooms and stuff that I would make for it like what would be what would I love to see that would just floor me and so I leaned a lot into like the the books and the stories that we grew up with as children, you know, like whether it’s fairy tales, whether it’s Narnia or you know, Lord of the Rings or whatever it is, um trying to figure out how to squeeze as many of those little references in, and into the book. And, you know, as they’re walking through the children’s section, there’s a yellow brick road, you know, that kind of weaves through it or, you know, there’s a giant jungle tree, you know, like from Jungle Book um and various things like that, that would kind of help the reader um step back into the moment where they probably where I hope that they fell in love with reading and with stories. um
Ande Pliego	Trying to carry that throughout the book and they start out in the children’s, kind of in the children’s section. It’s like whimsical and you’re like beautiful and all this. And then the rooms get darker as the time, as the story goes on. And it kind of matches, you know, the plot and the character’s but mental state and all these things. um And so that was just, it was so much fun to play with.
Brook	Yeah, really well done.
Ande Pliego	Thank you Thank you so much.
Sarah	Thank you, Ande, for joining us. Where can listeners find you?
Ande Pliego	Yeah. So I am primarily on Instagram at @AndePliegowrites, just my name and then writes. Um, and then I’ve got website was just andepliego.com. And that usually is up to date with like my tour stops and you know, any events I’m doing. Um, and yeah, those are the, those are the main places that I’m at these days.
Brook	Well, thank you, Ande. We are so thankful for you coming on today to talk to us about this topic. And we wish you well on your release of The Library After Dark. And thank you, listeners, for joining us today on Clued in Mystery.
Brook	I’m Brook.
Sarah	And I’m Sarah, and we both love mystery.
Ande Pliego	Thank you all so much.