Q&A with Nina Simon, Author of My Sister Is Going to Kill Me

This debut novel was a Reese’s Book Club pick, a Golden Poppy Award winner, and a “best of 2023” selection for Amazon, Barnes & Noble, CrimeReads, and Library Journal.

Before turning to fiction, Nina wore many hats: NASA engineer, slam poet, game designer, museum director, and nonprofit CEO. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Nina now lives off-the-grid in the Santa Cruz Mountains with her family. 

Nina will launch her highly anticipated My Sister Is Going to Kill Me (William Morrow; August 18, 2026) right here in Carlsbad, Ca., on her pub date with Adventures by the Book at Napatini Wine Bar at 2pm. Click here for full details. I’ll be there! It’s going to be such a wonderful event.

Let’s get to know Nina as she talks favorite novels, her writing journey, inspiration behind her latest story and more!

What are some of your favorite novels?

The list is far too long to recount, but there are a few novels I find myself returning to and recommending again and again. I love THE SHADOW OF THE WIND by Carlos Ruiz Zafon for its sweeping, magical world-building. I love GREAT CIRCLE by Maggie Shipstead for its strong female adventure vibes. I think HALF OF A YELLOW SUN by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is one of the best works of immersive historical fiction out there. And I’m a Tayor Jenkins Reid super-fan.

When it comes to mysteries, I’m particularly partial to Mick Herron’s stylish, funny spy thrillers, SA Cosby’s brutal Southern noir novels, Dennis Lehane’s gritty Boston crime stories, and Tana French’s gorgeous Dublin whodunnits. 

When did you know you wanted to become an author?

I’ve always loved to read and write, but I never imagined I would become a fiction author. Writing was always something I did on the side, for my own pleasure, learning, and community. In college, I was an engineering student by day and a poet by night. As an adult, I was a museum director who wrote nonfiction textbooks about designing more inclusive, participatory cultural organizations in my spare moments.

Everything changed when my mom was diagnosed with advanced cancer in 2020. I quit my nonprofit museum job to care for her, and I found myself reading mysteries for comfort. I ended up writing my first novel, Mother-Daughter Murder Night, (inspired by my mom) as a way to connect with her and find a positive escape during that difficult time.   

Can you tell us about the journey of your debut novel, from writing the story to being selected as a Reese Book Club Pick to hitting the New York Times Bestseller’s list? 

My mom and I have always enjoyed reading mysteries that feature feisty female detectives. When she got sick, I started pulling out old favorites to read with her again. Then, I decided to try my hand at writing one. Between doctor’s visits and chemotherapy appointments, we started imagining a mystery that featured characters a bit like us—hardworking California women trying to balance professional ambition and motherhood. I wrote, and my mom read, and the creative process helped us heal and grow closer. That’s how Mother-Daughter Murder Night was born.

I never expected Mother-Daughter Murder Night to get published, let alone become a Reese’s Book Club pick or a New York Times bestseller. I thought I was writing a story to help my mom and I connect during a tough time. By the time I finished the first full draft, my mom’s health had started to improve, and I had to decide whether to go back to full-time work or not. I was afraid to take on another intense nonprofit job, one I might feel the need to leave if my mom’s health worsened.

So I decided to try to edit the manuscript, get an agent, and a book deal. That went better than I ever could have imagined. Mother-Daughter Murder Night started out as a project invented to escape a nightmare, but it turned into a fairytale dream of a publishing outcome.

What inspired your next novel, My Sister is Going to Kill Me?

This book is inspired by two things I love dearly—my sister, and the Grand Canyon.

For the first forty years of our relationship, my sister Morgan and I never went on a trip together. We are each other’s only siblings, just fifteen months apart. We love each other and are incredibly close, but that closeness hasn’t always translated to ease. We’re the kind of sisters who can finish each other’s sentences, but we can also set each other off with a single word.

Over the past few years, we’ve dealt with a series of major family health crises. First our mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer, then our dad. We did a good job supporting each other and tag-teaming care for our parents, but it was stressful, emotional work. We decided to balance it out with our first-ever sister trip: a rafting vacation in the Grand Canyon. 

That trip was one of the best experiences of my adult life. We traveled as a unit—branded “the sisters” among the guests—and our paddles both propelled us forward and revived problematic childhood patterns of relating. Morgan and I are not much like the fictitious sisters in this book, Liv and Mandy, but the sister bond at the heart of this novel is fueled by our connection and all its loving, complicated, messy, beautiful aspects. 

What was your favorite part or chapter to write? 

I loved writing the two sisters and their relationship with each other. Liv and Mandy see the world in entirely different ways, and I had a lot of fun using the murder investigation as a vehicle to help them learn to respect and understand each other better. In real life, none of us wants to put our relationships under pressure, but it’s sometimes those high stakes situations that create the most lasting and meaningful bonds. 

I also loved writing about the natural beauty and dangers of the Grand Canyon. I’m a committed outdoorswoman, and the extremes of the desert provide what I believe to be some of the most beautiful landscapes on the planet. I loved the challenge of trying to capture such a wild and otherworldly environment in a way that could drop readers right into the whitewater alongside the characters.

What are you currently reading and what’s on your TBR (to be read) list?

I always have multiple books going at once. Currently, I’m reading a wilderness thriller that will come out in 2027 (a great treat of being an author is being asked to write blurbs for books that are yet to be published). I’m balancing that with Kelly Link’s strange and wonderful stories in Magic for Beginners, and Emma Straub’s fun new novel American Fantasy.

I’ve also recently become obsessed with the Southern noir author Daniel Woodrell (most famous for Winter’s Bone) and am hoping to read his entire backlist this year. Finally, I always keep books of poetry by my bed; I try to turn to them instead of my phone on late nights and early mornings.