Jennifer Vido: What inspired your new release, The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise? Colleen Oakley: Two things: it’s part homage to my favorite feminist duo of the big screen: Thelma & Louise and part homage to my grandmother, an incredible woman who died a few years ago at the age of 92 and inspired the sharply quick-witted and pragmatic character of Louise.   Jen: Let’s dive right in. Who is Tanner, and what’s happening in her world? Colleen: She’s a 21-year-old college dropout whose life took a series of unexpected bad turns—the latest of which has landed her as the live-in driver/caretaker for an 84-year-old woman that she would very much rather not live with or take care of.   Jen: What’s going through Tanner’s mind the first few days living in Louise’s home? Colleen: Tanner is content to just get by—do the bare minimum of what’s required of her in her new position, and in her free time, get lost in her video games and ignore Louise. That is, until she starts to notice a few strange things about the house she’s living in and her new roommate Louise—whose life may not be as boring or uninteresting…

Jen: What inspired you to write The Invisible Husband of Frick Island? Colleen: A few years ago I ran across a newspaper article about a woman in Australia whose husband had died, and she was in such denial about it, she left his body in their bed and continued to live her life as though everything were completely fine. It wasn’t until a neighbor noticed an… odor, that people found out. I know that’s so morbid, but as a novelist I found it fascinating—the idea that grief can make us do such strange things, and that no two people grieve the same way. And that woman’s story was the initial spark of the idea for The Invisible Husband of Frick Island, about a woman who is in such denial about her husband’s death, she wakes up every morning and lives her life as if he is right there beside her (fortunately, without the rotting corpse in the bed). Let’s talk about Piper and Tom Parrish. Who are they and what’s their connection to the island? Piper and Tom are high school sweethearts turned young newlyweds who live on Frick Island, a tiny strip of land smack in the middle of…