I met Chicago author Marisa Walz at the Heartland Fall Forum in Indianapolis this year, where we spent a few days talking to Midwest booksellers about our forthcoming debuts. Good Intentions, Marisa’s psychological suspense debut, releases February 3, 2026. It follows Cady, a luxury party planner who, after her sister’s accidental death, becomes fixated on a woman she encounters in a hospital waiting room. What ensues is a close examination of the moral ambiguity that arises when the desire to help devolves into obsession.
Local CHIRB readers have the opportunity to see Marisa in conversation with Hannah Morrissey on March 4, 2026, at 6:00 p.m. at Lake Forest Book Store in Lake Forest, IL.
Recently, I asked her about how Chicago inspires her work and how she developed Good Intentions’ distinctive voice. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Sara Maurer
At the beginning of the novel, Cady is running a successful but very demanding luxury event-planning business. She lives well but works hard for it. She says, “I had three offices back then: my home office, my office office, and my car office.” We see her checking her email, texting, calling. Her phone is constantly buzzing; the voices of Siri and GPS fight for her attention as she drives. Eventually, we learn that this hyper connection and busyness have profound consequences. How does Good Intentions explore the role of technology in our lives?
Marisa Walz
I think in any novel set in the modern world, it’s almost impossible for technology not to play a role—it’s just so baked into our lives. With Cady specifically, her busyness and hyperconnection are part of how she defines herself, at least at the start of the novel. That opening scene really mattered to me because, on the surface, it just feels like background noise: emails, texts, GPS directions chiming in. But there’s something really unsettling about the fact that, in what ends up being the worst moment of Cady’s life—when she’s bracing for such devastating news—there’s this intrusive, mechanical noise cutting in. It’s an ugly reminder that we can’t ever fully escape being “on.”
And then, as the story goes on, technology makes it frighteningly easy for Cady to track down Morgan, the woman she saw at the hospital and becomes fixated on, and then for that curiosity to slip into obsession. Even beyond this digital prying into Morgan’s life, there are other ways technology shapes the story and Cady’s life—how it fuels conflict in her marriage, how it enables her natural tendency to mistrust and pry, and even to hide. It doesn’t create those impulses, but it absolutely amplifies and enables them—it both helps and hurts Cady, and isn’t that just so true for all of us?
Sara Maurer
The narrative is written from the perspective of Cady speaking to her twin, Dana, who has died: “You know how much I hate winter, Dana”. Can you walk me through your decision to tell the story through the second person? Did you try other points of view before landing on this one? What does the second person accomplish that the first or third person doesn’t?
Marisa Walz
I actually wrote the novel originally in the first person, but it didn’t feel…intense enough. I wanted the story to feel more confessional. I wanted the reader to feel like Cady was whispering this terrible, dark secret directly into their ear. And I realized pretty quickly that it didn’t make sense for Cady to be admitting all of this to herself. She’s self-aware in some ways, but in other ways she’s deeply avoidant, and there are things she just wouldn’t look at head-on.
That’s what led me to the idea of Cady speaking directly to Dana. Dana is the only person Cady would ever be this honest with. And even then, that honesty comes in small doses—the whole time, she’s working up to bigger, more devastating confessions as the story unfolds.
I did think about an epistolary format at one point—a journal, or letters to Dana—but that immediately felt wrong. Cady would never risk writing any of this down. So instead it became this long, ongoing one-sided conversation—a drawn-out confession—directly to her sister.
Once I started rewriting it this way, in the second person, I could instantly just feel that it was right. The book suddenly felt much more intimate—it was almost claustrophobic, being so trapped in Cady’s head like that, the reader feeling the burden of all these terrible things she’s revealing.
Sara Maurer
How did living and writing in Chicago shape the atmosphere, tone, or themes of Good Intentions, and what aspects of the city were most important for you to portray authentically? Did you ever consider any other settings? If so, how did you ultimately land on Chicago?
Marisa Walz
I never considered any other settings for this story; I always knew I wanted Cady to live in an affluent Chicago suburb and have a glamorous career that brings her into the city often. Because she’s a luxury event planner, it felt important that she’d be constantly moving between that quieter, polished suburban world and the city itself—ballrooms, six-star hotels, private clubs. For me, part of the fun—part of the spectacle—is being a fly on the wall in these kinds of settings. Which is why it was also important for me to immerse my readers in that world right away. But I didn’t initially get that part just right. In the original opening I’d written, I actually had Cady showing a client a PowerPoint presentation of the over-the-top Sweet Sixteen party she was planning for the client. But an amazing early reader made a great point that we should see Cady fully in her element before everything starts to unravel. And she was right—a PowerPoint? So boring! So now the story opens in the actual Sweet Sixteen party itself. After the creepy prologue, I drop readers straight into that glittery, opulent world—showing Cady successful, in control, thriving—so the fall feels sharper when it comes. And I love that contrast: there’s so much beauty and glamour, but it’s sitting right next to something much darker. Just like the city, it’s at once gorgeous and gritty.
Sara Maurer
An image that will stay with me forever is, “As I drove off the dealership lot, I could feel the loss of those extra four thousand pounds like a fresh haircut swinging over my shoulders.” It’s so Cady. How did you discover Cady’s voice during the writing process, and as a debut author, how did you discover your own?
Marisa Walz
I love this question because, as cheesy or artsy as it may sound to someone who’s never tried to write a novel, finding your voice is so critical. It affects how authentic the story feels, how readers connect to the characters, and whether they’re willing to go somewhere dark with you. For me, voice is almost everything. I can forgive a lot if I love the voice. But finding my own did not come easily. I wrote three okay books first, and each one felt like I was getting a little closer, but it wasn’t until Good Intentions that something really clicked and the voice was just there. Flowing. And ironically, the thing that helped me most was reading other voicey books, studying other people’s voices to find my own. Asking, why did I connect to this one but not that one?
What’s especially interesting, and funny, to me is that Cady’s voice is actually pretty close to my own—not in terms of her choices or her behavior, but in the way she observes things and narrates her world—so why did it take me so long to find? Another thing that’s funny is the readers’ reactions to Cady’s voice, and how it impacts their opinion of her. That sharp, dry, hyper-aware inner monologue is so familiar and second nature to me. In the book it’s exaggerated, of course, because fiction has to pull off the miracle of being both authentic and dramatic enough to hold your attention, but…it’s my voice, largely. So when I read reviews that comment on that aspect of the book—how unlikeable, or not, Cady is—I have a private little chuckle.
Sara Maurer
Another line I loved was, “The sky was still the color of razor blades.” It felt so foreboding and urban. Chicago is known for its strong sense of place—weather, architecture, proximity to Lake Michigan, etc. How did you tap into sensory details to ground readers in Chicago while also building narrative tension?
Marisa Walz
From the outset, I knew I wanted the book to feel gloomy, almost oppressively so. I purposely began the narrative in February, because it’s such a punishing time of year in the Midwest. By then, we’ve endured so much winter yet there’s still so much of it left. That exhaustion felt emotionally useful for the story.
When I was reaching for imagery to describe all this, I wanted to capture not just that flat gray Chicago sky, but this sense of looming threat, of violence. Hence, a razor-blade-colored sky.
Tapping into those kinds of sensory details came naturally because I was living it while I was writing it. I really spent some time nailing some of those descriptions, like what the cold feels like, how deep into your bones it goes, the way it bites and cramps from the inside out. It mattered to me that a Midwesterner reading the book would recognize those moments and almost nod along—like, yes, that’s exactly what it feels like. Grounding the tension in those physical sensations helped make the unease of the story feel more constant.
Sara Maurer
Were there any characters or plot developments that surprised you the most while drafting? How did those unexpected shifts influence the final story?
Marisa Walz
Maura, Cady’s grief group counselor, was a huge surprise for me. For whatever reason, she came onto the page very easily. I knew from the start that I didn’t want her to be a stereotypical grief counselor, or what we might think of when we think of someone who devotes their life to this line of work—a soft-spoken, endlessly gentle presence. I knew Cady wouldn’t respond to that, let alone stick around for more of it. Instead, I imagined someone a little sharper, with some edges. Someone who felt real. The kind of person Cady might actually listen to and learn from.
In early drafts, Maura was there, but she didn’t have nearly the influence she ends up having in the final draft. But I kept hearing requests from early readers for “more Maura,” which was a strong signal I couldn’t ignore. So Maura’s role kept growing and evolving, and now she plays an important—if somewhat unwitting—role in the final act of the novel, sometimes genuinely helping Cady, sometimes inadvertently enabling her in ways that complicate things. By the final act, she’s actually part of several key plot turns. So ultimately, leaning into her presence ended up deepening both the character dynamics and the moral messiness of the story in a way I hadn’t originally planned—but now can’t imagine the book without.
Sara Maurer
The final chapter is so satisfying and so heartbreaking. Were you always writing toward this ending, or did it become clear as you were drafting? How did you decide how much information to give readers and when to give it to create the most suspense?
Marisa Walz
The final chapter was actually the second chapter I wrote, so in that sense, yes—I always knew where the book was headed. I started with the ending and then worked backward, figuring out how to earn it and how to bring the reader emotionally to that place.
Deciding how much information to give the reader, and when, was one of the trickiest parts of the entire book. You have to plant enough clues to earn the twist and make it feel fair—so readers don’t feel cheated, like they never had a chance of figuring it out—but you also have to be subtle enough and restrained enough to ensure most readers will be surprised, ideally stunned, when everything clicks into place.
It took some real tinkering to get that balance right. In my first drafts, early readers guessed the twist pretty early on, which told me I was being too heavy-handed. So I kept going back and softening the clues or removing some entirely, until I got it right. And now what I hear most often—especially from people who reread the book—is, “Oh my god, it was right there the whole time!” There are just so many little things that add up in the end. And that was my goal. Actually, the goal was twofold. Goal number one was to shock everyone right at the end. But I knew a hundred percent strike rate was impossible. It just is. So goal number two was to deliver that last reveal in such a way that, even if you knew it was coming, it still feels intense and emotionally devastating.
Fiction
Good Intentions
By Marisa Walz
St. Martin’s Press
Published February 3, 2026
