Shreveport author pens thrilling fiction set in Louisiana | Entertainment/Life

Monroe native Ashley Elston, author of six young adult novels and two adult novels, lives in Shreveport with her family. Elston was a wedding photographer who started writing books as a creative outlet after pausing her photography business when her third son was born. She published her first book, “Rules for Disappearing,” in 2013. 

Her last book, “First Lie Wins,” gained national acclaim through Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club. Her new book, “Anatomy of an Alibi,” came out Jan. 13 and is available at all local bookstores. 

“Anatomy of an Alibi” is a suspenseful mystery that is set in St. Francisville and Baton Rouge. One woman, Aubrey Price, agrees to take on Camille Bayliss’s identity for a day so Camille can investigate her husband Ben’s unusual behavior. The plan involves much more than what is originally agreed upon when Ben turns up murdered the next morning. The two women get caught up in a decades-old secret that involves them both.

This conversation was edited for length and clarity.

What drew you to Baton Rouge and St. Francisville as the setting for your new book? 

All of my books have been set in Louisiana, and I’ve done some in Shreveport and some in made-up towns. We were down in St. Francisville a couple of years ago. It was just so cute, so quaint, so fun. And I was like, “I should set something here.”

Then we ended up going to the Angola rodeo, and I thought I had to use this in a book somehow. That’s how I wanted to it be in St. Francisville. Then I needed a big town, and Baton Rouge is the closest big town, so that worked to all be what I needed it to be.

What was your process in getting to know the area?

I’ve been to Baton Rouge a ton. I felt pretty comfortable with Baton Rouge, and I do feel like, in general, there’s a lot of similarities between Baton Rouge and Shreveport.

I came back to St. Francisville last year when I was editing it, just to ride around again and make sure that what I was saying felt right for the place. Then I made some tweaks and changes. That’s the fun part of writing.

“Anatomy of an Alibi” has many complicated twists and turns, involving legal and business issues. How did you develop a plot like that?

It takes a lot of different drafts for me. I don’t really think of all that at the start. The first draft is typically a bit more straightforward. When I know where I’m trying to go, what I’m trying to do, I ask, “How can I go twist it up?” Then I usually go back in and really look at each scene and go, “How can I make this better and dig a little bit deeper?”

The characters in “Anatomy of an Alibi” are complex. What inspires you to create ambiguous characters?

That’s what I love when I’m reading. When I’m writing, I hope to get across that everybody’s a bit complicated. Everybody is not just black or white. 

Sometimes you’re bad, but you have good qualities, and sometimes you have great qualities, but you have a couple bad moments. I think that makes it so much more realistic and natural.

I enjoy a complicated character, and I like that you can’t decide whether you like them or not.

Just as the characters are multidimensional, the plot has many layers. How did you get that deep into the weeds of what the actual truth was?

I spent a lot of time thinking about those characters and how they would react, the things they would do. A lot of it is just editing, revising, digging deeper, thinking past the surface to motivations.

That’s why it takes me a long time between books — because I do spend a lot of time trying to get as deep as I can.

“First Lie Wins” received a lot of national recognition. Were there any expectations for “Anatomy of an Alibi”? 

It’s crazy, especially because they’re my seventh and eighth books, and a lot of people think it’s my first and second. I’ve had books that come out that nobody knew about — no attention and sales were abysmal. I still think they’re as good as these books. They just didn’t get the marketing dollars.

I think also, though, that allowed me to really appreciate what I did get, because I have been on that other side. I’m so very well aware of what that other side feels like, so it just made this even sweeter.

What are you most proud of with “Anatomy of an Alibi?”

Finishing it. It was extremely hard to write a book after all of the attention of “First Lie Wins.” 

I felt like “First Like Wins” was like lightning in a bottle. And I just thought, “Why would I even attempt to try to write something else?” So, I struggled,  just wondering if it was good enough. I second guessed myself in a way that I had never done before. So, I am most proud that I actually finished it because it was the book I was most scared to write.