We Were Liars season 2, new book We Fell Apart

SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers for Season 1 of Amazon Prime Video’s ‘We Were Liars’.

The “We Were Liars” universe expands Tuesday with the release of E. Lockhart’s new novel, “We Fell Apart.”

‘We Fell Apart’ is set in the same world as that of the ultra-wealthy Sinclair family at the center of the ‘We Were Liars’ book series and Emily Alyn Lind’s Amazon-led TV series adaptation of the same name. We Fell Apart follows a new set of characters who must keep their own secrets and solve mysteries.

There’s Matilda, who is invited to spend the summer with her long-lost father: a reclusive artist named Kingsley Cello. When she arrives at his seaside home, Hidden Beach, Kingsley is nowhere to be found, but she meets her half-brother Meer, a former child star named Brock, and a brooding boy named Tatum who live on Kingsley’s crumbling castle-inspired estate.

While showrunners Julie Plec and Carina Adly MacKenzie and author Lockhart work on the second season of “We Were Liars,” “We Fell Apart” offers enough story to tide over Beechwood Island fans until they see where the TV drama goes. And now that Cadence Sinclair knows that her beloved cousins ​​and childhood sweetheart – ‘The Liars’ – have died in a fire for which she and they were responsible, the plan is to delve into the dark past of Cady’s mother and aunts, which will be explored in the sequel ‘Family of Liars’.

Here author Lockhart explains Variety about the story at the heart of ‘We Fell Apart’ and teases how it could connect to Season 2 of Amazon’s ‘We Were Liars’.

How did you come up with the idea for “We Fell Apart” and how would it tie into the first two “We Were Liars” books?

I got the idea for writing this book when I visited this incredible piece of land on Martha’s Vineyard, the summer home of an architect named Araldo Cossutta. And I toured this property, which was incredibly beautiful and falling apart. And it had a huge circular pool that was filled with leaves, algae and sludge, and it had towers, almost like a castle. And I got excited to write a classic Gothic house story that was also beachy. And I was like, “This is close to this storytelling world,” but I didn’t think it was related to “We Were Liars”; I thought of it as its own book.

And I started working on it and at the same time my side hustle was working on the TV show “We Were Liars.” So I was really immersed in the world of the TV show. We were casting and we were filming as I finished this book, and more and more the world of “We Were Liars” seeped into “We Fell Apart,” to the point where I thought, “Oh, this is really a book in the same universe.” So it started as a standalone book and became a book in the same universe.

The first thing I will say is that it can be read as a standalone, but for people who have read “We Were Liars,” I think what they will enjoy most, which starts near the beginning of the book, is that the characters find themselves on Beechwood Island. So Matilda and her half-brother Meer and two other boys take this boat at night across the water from Martha’s Vineyard to Beechwood Island, where a tragedy has recently occurred. And it’s kind of a scary adventure for teenagers. And they see the scene of the tragedy, and then they go further into the island, and they go to the tennis courts, and they go to the little beach, which is featured a lot in “We Were Liars.” And so it’s an opportunity for people to see the world of “We Were Liars” from a different perspective. And if people want to know more about Sinclair’s family secrets, they’ll find them in “We Fell Apart.” But it is its own story.

Although the gothic, beachy atmosphere is present in ‘We Fell Apart’, it is in a very different setting than ‘We Were Liars’, despite being very close in physical distance. What is the meaning of the differences and that juxtaposition?

In all three books there is a kingdom. In the first two books in this series, the kingdom is Beechwood Island, and it’s ruled by Harris Sinclair, the patriarch, and it’s an established kingdom, so to speak. And the kingdom in “We Fell Apart” is ruled by an absent patriarch, and it is an alternate kingdom. It is a house in which there is a very clearly articulated way of life and a set of values ​​that are defined in contrast to the kind of values ​​that the Sinclairs cherish in the other two books. But it is a kingdom nonetheless, and there is a ruler nonetheless. So it’s still thematically about deciding whether you’re a member of a kingdom or not, and whether you’re going to keep the secrets of that kingdom safe or expose them.

Will plot points from “We Fell Apart” be included in the second season of Amazon’s “We Were Liars”?

I guess I can just say that Julie Plec and Carina Adly MacKenzie have read this book.

Where do things stand so far in terms of production for Season 2? How closely will it follow the second book, “Family of Liars,” since Season 1 already borrowed from that book?

I can’t say much, but the new season will feature the story of “Family of Liars,” and at the same time, I know the showrunners have a lot of tricks up their sleeves so that people who have read “Family of Liars” will still be surprised. So without going in a completely new direction, they still find new twists. And there will be a current storyline, so that you will see Caitlin FitzGerald and Candice King and Mamie Gummer again. David Morse returns. Joseph Zada ​​returns. Emily Alyn Lind returns. So those characters will have a new storyline that will intersect with the ‘Family of Liars’ storyline and all the new things that the showrunners have come up with.

Have you given any advice on where you think the story should go in the current storyline for Cadence, in addition to the plot in the book?

I don’t think my role on this show is guidance. I guess I’m just one person on the team that makes this show. And Julie and Carina are the showrunners and I’m excited to ride with them, but it’s their ride.

They really care about these characters. They make very bingeable, very entertaining television, but they also invest heavily in complex, nuanced, difficult characters who go through a lot. They are not interested in simplifying or weakening anything. They’re interested in creating an experience for Season 2 that feels like the one they delivered in Season 1 – that’s emotionally invested in big messy characters.

A new TV series based on one of your books is in the works at Amazon’s Prime Video, “Genuine Fraud,” starring Rain Spencer of “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” Where is that project in the development process?

I think Rain Spencer is amazing and has a great range as an actress. She’s very funny, and she’s also a very good dramatic actor. And we have a showrunner named Sinead Daly, who is the showrunner for ‘Midnight Sun’ – Stephanie Meyer’s book, actually ‘Twilight’ from Edward’s point of view – and who is animated and in the animation process, and so she is free to come and run my show. So she writes the pilot, Rain is attached to it, and it’s going to be great.

This interview has been edited and condensed.