Today, award-winning author Vicki Weisfeld is guesting. She’s talking about her latest release, She Knew Too Much, a suspense novel. Don’t forget to enter the King Sumo giveaway.
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Why Vicki writes suspense:
Suspense novels, like my new destination thriller She Knew Too Much, exactly hit the sweet spot of what I like to read. Readers keep turning pages because they want to know “what happens next?” Well, not every reader. I do have a friend who reads the last pages of a novel first. She can’t stand the suspense! That’s just weird, as I’ve told her. Many times.
A lot goes into creating suspense—it can’t be cheesy, like the cliffhangers at the ends of chapters sometimes are. A story needs well-developed, believable characters and a situation that could be risky in some convincing way. For me, it adds to the suspense when a story takes place in an unusual setting, where the main character is a little out of their usual environment. In a foreign country, for example, characters can’t count on people or systems to act or respond in familiar, expected ways.
A lot of theories have been suggested to explain why women are such fans of crime and suspense fiction. I think it may be in part because women generally do feel more physical risk than men do. They might feel it when they’re walking alone at night, or searching for their car in a parking garage, or entering a rowdy bar where the clientele is predominantly male. There’s tension there. Possibly reading about dangerous situations and how female characters dealt with them successfully helps women think, “Ok, that’s manageable.”
In my new thriller, She Knew Too Much, an American in Italy gets in way over her head when she overhears gangsters plotting a crime. One of them follows and attacks her, and she ends up in the hospital. A Polizia di Stato detective moves her to a safer location, but they learn the criminals aren’t done with her when another woman is mistaken for her and murdered. There’s no doubt they gangsters will continue searching for her. How she responds, trying to stay safe and get justice for the murdered woman, is the core of the book. Fortunately, the detective shares her determination on both counts.
She Knew Too Much is “like a trip to Rome without the airfare.” Your readers will find it a fast-moving story with touches of romance, humor, and humanity. I welcome their responses. Thank you for inviting me to share these few words.
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Title: She Knew Too Much
Series: N/A
Genre: Suspense
Author: Vicki Weisfeld
Length: 634 pages
Release Date: December 4, 2025
Publisher: Audecyn Books
Blurb: Travel writer Genie Clarke arrives in Rome seeking inspiration, but her trip turns deadly when she overhears two mafia operatives discussing a secret “Project.” Before she can escape, she’s attacked and left for dead. Awakening in a hospital-alive but hunted-Genie finds the police unwilling to believe her. Only Detective Leo Angelini takes her seriously, uncovering ties between her assault, a murdered woman, and a powerful criminal network.
With the threat escalating, Leo moves Genie into hiding, where she becomes both key witness and prime target. Cut off from safety and unsure who to trust, Genie must outthink the conspirators determined to silence her.
From Rome’s bright piazzas to its shadowed alleys, she faces a terrifying fight for survival-and an unexpected connection with the detective risking everything to protect her.
SHE KNEW TOO MUCH is a lean, suspenseful psychological thriller about fear, courage, and the price of knowing too much.
Available at:
Dizzy, I swayed, staring into eyes pale and hard as silver coins. My knees gave way, and I slid down his chest. The foul odor of sweat-stained leather enveloped me. A zipper tore my cheek. I was yelling, or trying to, but he was undeterred. With one hand he held me up by the armpit, while his other fist found my face, stomach, ribs.
My brain kept repeating his warning. “Mind your own business, mind your own business, mind your …”
I squirmed and twisted but couldn’t break free. Our bodies were locked too closely together, my face buried deep in the rancid jacket. I tasted blood. I tried to call out again, but he knocked the wind out of me, and I could barely gasp. I stomped on his instep—futile in my bare feet—and foolish—his boots heavy and rigid One of those boots connected with my shin, then stepped hard on my bare toes. I yelped.
Vision blurred, perceptions clouded. I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. A tattoo of a blue and green snake’s head covered the back of his hand. It coiled around his wrist and up under the jacket’s leather sleeve. Confused as I was, I could almost believe it was the snake attacking me. Mesmerized, I followed its black eyes as the hand disappeared into a pocket and came out holding a knife. The flashing blade broke the spell. In a desperate surge of energy, I tore myself away from him and screamed, “No!”
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Vicki Weisfeld is a Midwesterner (Go Blue!) transplanted to New Jersey. Her short stories have appeared in leading mystery magazines, including Ellery Queen, Sherlock Holmes, and Black Cat. Find her work also in a variety of anthologies: Busted: Arresting Stories from the Beat, Seascapes: Best New England Crime Stories, Murder Among Friends, Passport to Murder, The Best Laid Plans, Quoth the Raven, and Sherlock Holmes in the Realms of Edgar Allan Poe.
She’s a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, which awarded “Breadcrumbs” a best short story Derringer in 2017, and the Public Safety Writers Association, which gave a similar award to “Who They Are Now” in 2020. She’s a reviewer of New Jersey theater for TheFrontRowCenter.com and crime/mystery/thriller fiction for the UK website, crimefictionlover.com.
Follow Vicki: Website | Goodreads | Amazon
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Maggie Blackbird 
Thank you so much for featuring SHE KNEW TOO MUCH.
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