Recent Books by Guests on the Write Now with Scrivener Podcast

The Write Now with Scrivener podcast has been active for over five years, and many of the authors we have featured have released notable books recently. We highlight a half-dozen of these books, together with each author’s podcast episode, for you to learn more about them. You might find some great summer reading here.

Veronica Roth: Seek The Traitor’s Son

Veronica Roth’s latest book, Seek The Traitor’s Son, is “An epic, romantic dystopian fantasy.” Elegy Ahn, a soldier, is “summoned to hear a prophecy – her, and the most ruthless of Talusar generals, Rava Vidar. Brought face to face, they learn that one of them will lead their people to victory over the other… but they don’t know which. And at the center of both of their fates: a man. A man that, Elegy is told, she will fall in love with.”

We spoke with Veronica in episode 43 of the podcast. She said, “I think you write your first book in this rush of love, this surge of inspiration and obsession, and then your subsequent books, you become more analytical. You’re trying to analyze your work. You’re trying to maybe write for the industry’s expectations. You start writing with your head. So what I’m working on right now is getting back in touch with that gut, that obsessive streak, that passion.”

Kate Heartfield: Mercutio

Kate Heartfield’s new novel Mercutio is “an opulent 13th-century epic retelling of the life of Mercutio before he ever encountered Romeo and Juliet.” Kate discusses her motivation for writing this novel in this newsletter, explaining that she has been thinking about this story for many years.

We spoke with Kate in episode 39 of the podcast. She talked about writing historical fantasy, and said, discussing her novel The Embroidered Book, “I really liked telling a story that’s in amongst the real facts of history, that uses the real facts of history as a scaffolding and then fills in some secret knowledge in between those facts.”

David Goodman: Solitary Agents

David Goodman’s first novel, A Reluctant Spy, was a resounding success when it was published in 2025. The sequel, Solitary Agents, brings back the protagonist of that story who must face new challenges.

“Jamie Tulloch and Sam Li never intended to be spies. Jamie, a former exec at a tech company, found himself caught up in a mission and discovered a taste for the secret world, while Sam, a burnt-out corporate lawyer, was unexpectedly talent-spotted by MI5. When both are plunged into covert training, they find themselves pitted against each other for their final evaluation – Exercise Red Poacher.”

We spoke with David in episode 46 of the podcast, and he told us about his travails breaking into fiction and having two novels turned down, before he finally got his break. We discussed the idea of “list fit” in publishing, the limitation of “books fitting into a catalog of books that are coming out in a given year.” When trying to sell a book, “you are competing with other very, very good writers for a very limited number of slots.”

Jessica Payne: Somebody Worth Killing

We spoke with Jessica Payne in episode 14 of the podcast, after she had published her first novel, Make Me Disappear. Since then, she’s written four other books, and her latest is Somebody Worth Killing, with a follow-up book due in 2027.

Four years ago, Jessica talked about breaking into publishing. She also said how her first novel, which was about a woman who fakes her own kidnapping to get away from the world, was partly influenced by COVID, but also by her experience living in the woods for six months. "You don’t have phones, you don’t have computers or internet, the only way you communicate with the outside world is snail mail. Living and working out in the wilderness was an incredible experience that made me step back and reframe my whole world and what I wanted from life.”

Fonda Lee: The Last Contract of Isako

Fonda Lee is the award-winning author of The Green Bone Saga, which consists of the novels Jade City, Jade War, and Jade Legacy. In her latest novel, The Last Contract of Isako, “A battle-worn corporate samurai undertakes one last mission on a merciless planet where death is always a mere breath away.”

We spoke with Fonda in episode 34 of the podcast, where she discussed her journey from corporate strategist for Nike to published author. "Writing was a passion that I had since I was young, but I grew up not thinking that that was a real job. I didn’t really get down to it until I was in my early 30s. I had reached the point in my business career where I had to decide what to do next.”

Carl Zimmer: Air-Borne: The Hidden History Of The Life We Breathe

Carl Zimmer is a science author and columnist for the New York Times. His latest book, Air-Borne: The Hidden History Of The Life We Breathe, is “the fascinating, untold story of the air we breathe, the hidden life it contains, and invisible dangers that can turn the world upside down.”

Having done a lot of reporting during the COVID pandemic, Carl Zimmer explains how “the air teems with invisible life,” and points out that “This last great biological frontier remains so mysterious that it took over two years for scientists to finally agree that the COVID pandemic was caused by an airborne virus.”

We spoke with Carl on episode 33 of the podcast, discussing his book Life’s Edge: The Search For What It Means To Be Alive. He talked about his pathway to writing books, how he started out with a job at a science magazine after college. "I just happened to get an entry-level job as an assistant copy editor at a magazine that happened to be about science. I started working on the stories, and I thought, ‘This is really interesting, I’m really enjoying this.’ Then I had the opportunity to grow in a position to start fact-checking, writing, editing, and so on. Discover magazine was a really great education, and I was there for 10 years in total. But you certainly just don’t wake up one day and become a science writer.”