We Were Liars Season 2, New Book We Fell Apart

SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers for Amazon Prime Video’s “We Were Liars” Season 1.

The “We Were Liars” universe expands Tuesday with the release of E. Lockhart‘s new novel, “We Fell Apart.”

Set in the same world as that of the ultra-rich Sinclair family at the center of the book series “We Were Liars,” and the Emily Alyn Lind-led Amazon’s TV series adaptation of the same name, “We Fell Apart” follows a new set of characters that have their own secrets to keep and mysteries to solve.

There’s Matilda, who is invited to spend the summer with her long-lost father: a reclusive artist named Kingsley Cello. When she arrives at his seaside home, Hidden Beach, Kingsley is nowhere to be seen, but she meets her half-brother Meer, a former child star named Brock, and a brooding boy named Tatum who are living in Kingsley’s crumbling, castle-inspired estate.

While the second season of “We Were Liars” is in the works from showrunners Julie Plec and Carina Adly MacKenzie and author Lockhart producing, “We Fell Apart” offers up plenty of story to tide fans of Beechwood Island over until they get to see where the TV drama goes. And now that Cadence Sinclair knows her beloved cousins and childhood sweetheart — “The Liars” — died in a fire for which she and they were responsible, the plan is to dive into the dark past of Cady’s mother and aunts, which is explored in sequel “Family of Liars.”

Here, author Lockhart tells Variety about the story at the center of “We Fell Apart” and teases how he could connect to Season 2 of Amazon’s “We Were Liars.”

How did you come up with the idea for “We Fell Apart” and how it would connect to the first two “We Were Liars” books?

I got the idea for writing this book when I visited this incredible piece of property on Martha’s Vineyard, which was the summer home of an architect called Araldo Cossutta. And I toured around this property, which was incredibly beautiful and falling apart. And it had a huge circular swimming pool that was filled with leaves and algae and sludge, and it had towers, almost like a castle. And I got excited to write a classic Gothic house story that was also beachy. And I was like, “This is close to this storytelling world,” but I did not think of it as connected to “We Were Liars”; I thought of it as its own book.

And I started working on it and at the same time, my side hustle was working on the “We Were Liars” TV show. So I was really steeped in the world of the TV show. We were casting, and we’re shooting as I am finishing this book, and more and more, the world of “We Were Liars” was seeping in to “We Fell Apart,” to the point where I was like, “Oh, this is really a book in the same universe.” So it started out as a standalone and became a book in the same universe.

The first thing that I want to say is it can be read alone, but for people who have read “We Were Liars,” I think the thing that they’re going to like the most that starts close to the beginning of the book is that the characters trespass over on Beechwood Island. So Matilda and her half brother, Meer, and two other boys take this boat over at night across the water from Martha’s Vineyard to Beechwood Island, where there has been a recent tragedy. And it’s a kind of a ghoulish, teenage trespassing adventure. And they see the site of the tragedy, and then they go further into the island, and they go to the tennis courts, and they go to the tiny beach, which features a lot in “We Were Liars.” And so it’s a chance for people to sort of see the world of “We Were Liars” from a different perspective. And if people want to learn more Sinclair family secrets, they will find them in “We Fell Apart.” But it is its own story.

While the Gothic beachy vibe is present in “We Fell Apart,” it’s in a very different setting from “We Were Liars,” despite them being very close in physical distance. What’s the significance of the differences and that juxtaposition?

In all three books, there’s a kingdom. In the first two books in this series, the kingdom is Beechwood Island, and it’s ruled by Harris Sinclair, the patriarch, and it is an establishment kingdom, so to speak. And the kingdom in “We Fell Apart” is ruled by an absent patriarch, and it is an alternative kingdom. It is a house in which there’s a very clearly articulated way of life and set of values that are defined in opposition to the kinds of values that are held by the Sinclairs in the other two books. But it is nonetheless a kingdom, and there’s nonetheless a ruler. So it’s still thematically about deciding whether you are a member of a kingdom or you are not a member of a kingdom, and whether you are going to keep safe the secrets of that kingdom or expose them.

Are plot points from “We Fell Apart” being incorporated into the second season of Amazon’s “We Were Liars”?

I think all I’m allowed to say is that Julie Plec and Carina Adly MacKenzie have read this book.

Where are things so far on production for Season 2? How closely will it follow the second book, “Family of Liars,” as Season 1 already borrowed some from that book?

There’s not a lot I can say, but the new season will fold in the story of “Family of Liars,” and at the same time, I know the showrunners have a bunch of tricks up their sleeve so that people who’ve read “Family of Liars” will still be surprised. So without going a whole new direction, they’re nonetheless finding new twists. And there will be a current storyline, so you will still see Caitlin FitzGerald and Candice King and Mamie Gummer back. David Morse is coming back. Joseph Zada is coming back. Emily Alyn Lind is coming back. So those characters will have a new storyline that will intersect with the “Family of Liars” storyline and all the new stuff the showrunners have come up with.

Have you given guidance on where you think the story should go in the present-day storyline for Cadence, beyond the plot in the book?

I don’t think my role on this show is guidance. I think that I’m just a person on the team that is making this show. And Julie and Carina are the showrunners and I’m excited to be on this ride with them, but it’s their ride.

They really care about these characters. They make very bingeable, very entertaining television, but they are also very invested in complex, nuanced, difficult characters who are going through a lot. They’re not interested in simplifying or dumbing down anything. They’re interested in creating an experience for Season 2 that feels like the experience they delivered in Season 1 — that is emotionally invested in big messy characters.

You have a new TV series based on one of your books in the works at Amazon’s Prime Video, “Genuine Fraud,” which stars “The Summer I Turned Pretty’s” Rain Spencer. Where’s that project in the development process?

I think Rain Spencer is terrific and has a really big range as an actress. She’s very funny, and she’s also a very good dramatic actor. And we have a showrunner named Sinead Daly, who is the showrunner for “Midnight Sun” — Stephanie Meyer’s book, basically “Twilight” from Edward’s point of view — and that is animated and is in the animation process, and that’s why she is free to come and run my show. So she’s writing the pilot, Rain is attached, and it’s gonna be amazing.

This interview has been edited and condensed.