All the Little Houses: A Guest Post by May Cobb

By BN Editors / January 29, 2026 at 12:01 am

The author of The Hunting Wives takes readers back to Texas for a sharp thriller set in the 1980s, where the little houses are full of big secrets — and the women who will do anything to keep them quiet. Read on for an exclusive essay from author May Cobb on writing All the Little Houses.

Hardcover $19.59 ~~$27.99~~

All the Little Houses: A Novel

By May Cobb

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Hardcover $19.59 ~~$27.99~~

Adults can behave badly too…

All the Little Houses was actually born out of a tweet, back in the days when I was still on Twitter! One day, I posted something along the lines of, “Little House on the Prairie but make it horror?” And my friend, the wonderful, fellow thriller author, Riley Sager, tweeted back, “I would watch that!” I found myself returning to the idea year after year, until I was finally ready to dive in and do my own twisted wink and nod to The Little House on the Prairie, which I grew up watching.

At first, I thought I would give it a contemporary setting, but the more I sat with it, the more I thought it would be fun to set it in the 1980s. I would say what surprised me was how I, without doing an actual retelling, decided to reimagine my own version of Little House, mainly with the Nellie and Jane characters.

It was fun to infuse the novel with little sprinkles, little nods to the original series, i.e. there’s a scene where Nellie is watching a re-run of Little House, another where Jane is riding a horse to town, just these little winks to the original series.

I was also trying to capture the vibe of 1980s soaps. I grew up in the 80s not only bingeing Little House, but also Dallas and Dynasty, and I had such a blast playing with old soap tropes and trying to create a sort of modern version of shows like Dallas that feature an ensemble cast of characters, cliffhangers, against the backdrop of oil-rich Texas.

Perhaps what surprised me the most in writing All the Little Houses was the character of Jackson, the mostly-closeted interior designer and Charleigh’s closest friend. When I originally conceived of Jackson, he was going to serve as the Greek Chorus of the novel, the moral conscience of the story, but soon, he took over and become one of the main characters and quite possibly—other than Jane—the only redeemable character of the book!

I had such a blast writing All the Little Houses and drafted it in five months, a new record for me! But I so enjoyed watching my characters’ unhinged actions as the story unfolded for me that it was easy to get lost for hours at a time trying to keep up with their misbehaving ways!