I was interested in the psychology behind the abuse, the why. In order to get inside the head of someone with MSBP, you have to tell at the beginning. The child is sick, but we’d never guess it’s the mother’s doing because a mom is supposed to be loving and caring. Many of us have read books where MSPB is the twist. Why did you decide to start the book this way? If I did my job right, that will come through. There are reasons that she acts the way she does. It’s easy to demonize Patty, but she also has her own backstory and complications. We have less sympathy for perpetrators when their illness hurts someone else. This illness blurs the line between the perpetrator and the victim because people with MSBP were almost always abused or severely neglected children. What does your novel’s forgiveness arc say about the victimizing nature of sickness?

Because they’re inherently unreliable and very accomplished liars, I think that leaves both the characters around them as well as readers in an uneven footing. I wanted to get inside of Patty’s head and figure out: Does she know that she’s lying? Does she think she’s doing what’s best for her child? I think that lends itself to a suspenseful nature. What’s going on inside the head of someone who can justify this kind of behavior? That was the impetus for the story. That story stuck with me and has haunted me for more than two years. So she eats a match, and she doesn’t realize it’s one of the things making her sick. Julie’s a little girl she doesn’t know any better. Here, have a lollipop.” And she pulls out this box of matches and hands Julie a match. They’re in the car, and her mom says, “You were such a good girl today. She was a victim of her mother’s abuse: There was this story in particular that she recounts when she and her mom are coming home from the doctor’s office.

You mentioned the Blanchard case, but the one that really drew me in was Julie Gregory’s 2004 memoir Sickened: The True Story of a Lost Childhood. I was shocked to find the perpetrators are usually mothers or women-most violent crimes are perpetrated by men-and this really stood out to me. I was horrified, but also intrigued, so I went down this rabbit hole of research. I first found out about Munchausen by Proxy from my best friend, an elementary school psychologist in Denver she experienced it with some of her students and their parents. Why did you want to tell a story about Induced Illness by Carers? How did you decide that suspense was the best genre for this particular story?

Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel (Photo credit: Berkley)ĭarling Rose Gold draws influence from the now-infamous Gypsy Rose Blanchard case.

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