So many times I have asked myself that question.....how did they come up with the story......that this book was a must read for me. These stories tell the story process for some of my favorite authors. I found it as engrossing as some of their books. Excellent read for anyone who might think they could write something that would be read by millions.

Engaging and inspiring. A recommended purchase for collections where writing craft titles are popular.

Fresh, Interesting, Original…
Interviews from forty seven accomplished authors, personal tales and never before published. Life experiences, idea formations, inspirations and opinions and countless other areas are all explored. It’s a fresh, interesting and original collection. The inside tack.

The Storytellers is a compilation of interviews with high-caliber writers of mystery and suspense fiction. The interviewer is skillful and does a good job eliciting interesting stories from his subjects, and the interviews proceed smoothly while offering fascinating insights into these authors. Each interview is preceded by an introduction summarizing the subject’s work and ends with a slightly awkward statement thanking the interviewee for his or her accomplishments. These vary in their effusiveness, telling us something about the author’s own preferences (“He thanked him for *A* when his most important work was *B?*”). Each interview follows a natural conversational path, with the one (again, slightly awkward and momentum-stopping) question common to all interviews being a request to name hypothetical dinner companions. I was hoping that at the end of the book there would be some synthesis of all the answers to this question—perhaps a table of preferred guests by author subgenre, or at least a list of the most-requested guests.

I found this a good book to pick up and put down, reading one interview at a time to appreciate each one more.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a digital advance review copy.

The Storytellers
Straight Talk from the World’s Most Acclaimed Suspense & Thriller Authors
by Mark Rubinstein
Pub Date 20 Jul 2021 |
Blackstone Publishing
Mystery & Thrillers | Nonfiction (Adult) | Reference


I am reviewing a copy The Storytellers: Straight Talk From the World’s Most Acclaimed Suspense &Thriller Authors through Blackstone Publishing and NetGalley:




If you have ever read a suspense novel so good you have to stop and think to yourself, “How did the author come up with this idea? Their characters? Is some of this story real?” For over five years, Mark Rubinstein, physician, psychiatrist, and mystery and thriller writer, had the chance to ask the most well-known authors in the field just these kinds of questions in interviews for the Huffington Post.





In The Storytellers are interviews with forty seven acclaimed authors from Michael Connelly Ken Follett, C. J. Box, Lee Child, Meg Gardiner, Dennis Lehane, Laura Lippman, and Don Winslow. These interviews are the authors personal stories stories in their own words, much of the material never before published. It tells of how these authors lives color their art. We learn of their thoughts their inspirations, their candid opinions. Learn more about your favorite authors, how they work and who they truly are.




I give The Storytellers five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

Subtitle: Straight Talk From the World’s Most Acclaimed Suspense and Thriller Authors

I received an advance reader copy of this book from the publisher through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a collection of forty-seven author interviews done by author Mark Rubinstein for the Huffington Post. It includes authors of practically every imaginable thriller sub-genre.


I have to admit that I was unaware of the massive popularity most of these authors have achieved. Most readers will have heard of writers such as Lee Child, Harlan Coben, and Sue Grafton, but there are many others in the book who have published dozens/hundreds of books and exceeded multimillions of copies sold.

While I did come away from the book with some solid writing advice, it was difficult for me not to be inspired by the stories of how many of these authors wrote for years before finally breaking through into the bestseller category. Some of them use outlines in the writing, other don’t, but nearly every one of them said that the key to become a successful writers is to write as often as possible.

I gave The Storytellers five stars on Goodreads. On top of the writing advice and inspiration I got from it, I also found at least a half-dozen writers to add to my ‘must read’ list.

‘The Story Tellers: Straight Talk From the World’s Most Acclaimed Suspense and Thriller Authors’ edited by Mark Rubinstein (Blackstone, $16.99, 364 pages)

For all of those questions you’ve ever wanted to ask your favorite thriller writer — beyond “where do you get your ideas” — editor, author and psychiatrist Mark Rubinstein has your back, and then some.

In “The Story Tellers: Straight Talk From the World’s Most Acclaimed Suspense and Thriller Authors,” Rubinstein delves deep into the psyche and persona of more than 40 writers, in essence casting them as characters in their own real-life stories.

Engaging and honest interviews populate the book — who knew that Patricia Cornwell kept sacred the memory of her first Kay Scarpetta novel reading, for which no one showed? — and the result is like sitting down with a group of friends … if your friends just happen to be multiple million book-selling authors.

Rubinstein’s who’s who of thriller and suspense authors is astonishing and the interviews are sober and sound, as if rubbing elbows with the world’s elite storytellers is an everyday occurrence — which, for Rubinstein, apparently is.

Here we get candid reveals from the likes of Lee Child, Kathy Reichs, John Sanford, Don Winslow, Michael Connelly and dozens of other names you've been reading for years. Part advice, part tell-all, Rubinstein’s collection encases a treasury of truths from writers whose stories we’ve enjoyed for years.

Thrilling indeed.

This book is good at being exactly what it says it is: a collection of interviews with some of the most famous mystery and thrillers writers in the (western)world.

If you are interested in learning more about the lives and writing habits of famous mystery thriller writers, you will enjoy this collection. My copy is heavily highlighted! There were so many gems from writers I admire, and I know I’ll go back to review what they’ve said.

An interesting insight into culture and the patriarchy was that when Rubinstein asked each author which five people, dead or alive, they’d like to invite to a dinner party, nearly all the male writers mentioned only men; most of the women mentioned both men and women (none of the people mentioned exist outside of the gender binary to the best of my knowledge) and just a few of the women mentioned only women.

The downfall of this book of course is that it is just what it is: a collection of interviews with famous writers. There’s no unifying narrative or thread running through the collection, outside of a few regularly appearing questions. Readers looking for
a narrative or guide book style approach to learning about creative writing would do better to look elsewhere. Further, the majority of those interviewed are very well established with sometimes decades of writing behind and them and dozens (sometimes into the hundreds!) or books published. Perhaps because of this bar and the traditionally white publishing industry, there isn’t a great deal of diversity in the collection either. Several of the female authors talk about their strugglers early on in a male oriented publishing industry, and Walter Mosley speaks powerfully about racial inequality and the importance of using your power as a writer to fight against it.

if you’re a passionate reader of thriller fiction and like hearing about the lives of your favorite authors, there’s a lot to enjoy in this collection.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with this ARC in return for my honest review.

This book came at the PERFECT time for me. I’m always looking for inspiration to keep writing and The Storytellers did just that. Thank you so much to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for providing me a copy.

Have you ever read a suspense novel so good you had to stop and think to yourself, “How did the author come up with this idea? Their characters? Is some of this story real?” For over five years, Mark Rubinstein, physician, psychiatrist, and mystery and thriller writer, had the chance to ask the most well-known authors in the field just these kinds of questions in interviews for the Huffington Post.

Collected here are interviews with forty-seven accomplished authors, including Michael Connelly, Ken Follett, C. J. Box, Lee Child, Meg Gardiner, Dennis Lehane, Laura Lippman, and Don Winslow. These are their personal stories in their own words, much of the material never before published. How do these writers’ life experiences color their art? Find out their thoughts, their inspirations, their candid opinions. Learn more about your favorite authors, how they work and who they truly are.

First off, I’ve read several of the featured authors works so I found the book incredibly interesting. Each chapter features an interview between Mark Rubinstein and interviews he’s had, mostly between 2016-2018, with the authors.

He asks the questions you would expect and then delves into the real grit of each author. What’s their writing process like? How many books do they write a year and exactly HOW do they make that happen? Mark also personalized the questions with the author’s past and how certain events shaped their plots and determination to be published.

I learned a lot about each author such as Laura Lippman’s tumultuous final year at The Baltimore Sun and Stuart Woods generally writes multiple books in ONE year.

Allow me to add that my beloved Sue Grafton is one of the authors featured in THE STORYTELLERS. Sue, author of the Kinsey Millhone series, also known as the alphabet series, died in 2017. Sue is one of my absolute favorite mystery authors and a big inspiration for my own writing.

I enjoyed how each mystery/thriller writer waxed on about how they believe we are all capable of doing bad things, but that we’ve got a moral compass to guide us. And as Dennis Lehane said, “The vast majority of what we call morality is simply fear of being caught.” He is sadly correct!

I received this copy as an e-book. I found the question and answer format a bit on the slow-reading side. However, I think if I had the novel in an actual book, I’d have read it faster.

I rate THE STORYTELLERS four out of five stars.

If you like reading interviews, this is the book for you. I don't read the authors who were interviewed, and I probably will not read a few based on the sexist answers and assumptions presented but no writer is for every reader. A few interviews had a non-traditional take on writing, but there was little in the collection that held my interest, improved my craft, or expanded my knowledge. In short, it's a nice collection of relatively old interviews with authors. It's not a book I would readily recommend to those interested in writing or storytelling in general.

The Storytellers is a compilation of interviews - both written and verbal with a wide range of mostly US/ British crime writers. Overall it's interesting enough and there are some big names in there - Lee Child, Harlan Coben, Robert Crais, as well as some authors who may be less familiar. The interviews are relatively free form with only one question seeming to be a constant - 'What five guests would you have at a dinner party'.
The interviews range even within themselves with relatively light touches on the author's writing style/ processes/ bibliographies and personal life. To this end, it's probably more of a dip in book than a read from beginning to end in normal situations.
There are a huge number of podcasts and virtual shows out there featuring many of these authors - a number of them having the time and expertise to dig deeper than this book does.
There is a very light touch applied outside of the interviews themselves in terms of foreward and afterword, meaning that some of the interviews are already out of date in terms of their references and future plans (a couple of references to writers who have passed which fails to mention this, for example).
The serious crime writing enthusiast may be familiar with a number of the anecdotes and/ or details provided - to this end I would suggest that this is aimed more at the reader looking to learn a bit more about writers they are familiar with already or, perhaps, find a few new writers to add to their to be read lists.

This is a very interesting book if you are interested in authors stories. There is a lot of information in these interviews, definitely something to check out.

This was the first time that I have read a book written like this. It was interviews with authors who have written horror and thriller books. It was an ok read but not what I expected.