Author Deborah Goodrich Royce brings forth a fascinating protagonist in a compelling psychological thriller revealing friendship, loss, a traumatic event, reinvention, unreliable memory, secrets, and suspense leading to an unexpected twist in her fourth novel Best Boy (Post Hill Press, February 24, 2026). A former actress who appeared in numerous films and TV shows, and a former Miramax Films story editor, Deborah serves on multiple civic and cultural boards, leads writing retreats, and, with her husband, has worked on theater and hotel restorations. In a recent interview, accompanied by her new puppy Jip, she discussed Best Boy and her author career.
Judith Erwin: What do you want readers to know about Best Boy?
Deborah Royce: I’ll start with why I chose the name and the genesis. I got an email a few years ago from a man who said, โHey, remember me? I was your best boy on Survival Game.โ A best boy is a person in the electrical department on a film. I didn’t remember this fellow, but he went on to say, โDo you remember when we ran into each other at the Cannes Film Festival? You were standing outside, holding a baby, and waving at me.โ I wondered for a moment if the child was mine.โ By that point, I’m practically falling on the floor. Finally, he said, โBut I knew that wouldn’t be possible.โ Huge relief! But I got to thinking about memory. People just do not remember the same thing. Are they lying? That was the germ. From there, I started with this woman with a flawed memory. I wanted layers of what best boy could mean. It could refer to this person in this [film production] job. It could refer to her son. And there’s something that happened to her when she was a teenagerโa sexual assault. Who was that boy? What exactly happened? So, there are all these layers. They all come together in the novel.
JE: You portray a camaraderie between women in your books. Is that something you planned?
DE: Thank you for noticing that. I like women. And that would seem to be a no-brainer to say, But I don’t know if we have culturally and historically been encouraged as women to really like other women.
JE: When did you first decide to become an author?
DR: It was a late-in-the-game decision. I went to college for French and Italian. I loved foreign languages. I did part of my junior year in Paris, which seemed to be a trajectory. I had a very naive idea of maybe I’ll go to Georgetown; maybe I’ll study Foreign Service at the graduate level. I don’t think I even knew what that was, I was a dancer and acted in some plays in college. A movie came to town, and I was cast as a background dancer. And it gave me the very false perception that this was an easy thing to doโdrop into a movie. The casting director was very friendly, probably more friendly than a young woman would accept today. But he kept saying, โYou should come to New York and audition for me.โ Well, I’m from the Midwest, and I believe that if you’ve told me I should come to New York and audition for you, that’s what you meant. I don’t think it’s what he meant at all. So, I finished college, was working in an office, thinking what am I going to do next? I picked up a copy of Variety and saw he was holding auditions in New York City. I flew to New York, auditioned, and wasn’t cast. I spent about a year pursuing dance on Broadway. After a year, I realized I really wasn’t good enough. But before I considered some other option, I tried acting and had more luck. I took acting classes, got a bunch of commercials, and got this big role on All My Children. I had a lovely 10-year run as an actress. I got married, had two children, and my first husband and I moved to Paris. I could speak French and ended up being hired as a reader for a French film studio. That began my slow transition to writing. I came back to New York and worked at Miramax as the story editor. Miramax was a very exciting place to work, and I would say it was my writing school. Then I left Miramax. A few years later, I went through a very difficult divorce, painful, and ended up remarrying, moving to Connecticut. I joined a couple of writing groups because I wanted to write. In those years, I gained my confidence and my understanding of my own voice as a writer. So, I really didn’t publish until I was an empty nester.
JE: Would you ever want to play a role in a film made from one of your books?
DR: No. The acting is really behind me. I’m also too old to play any of my characters. When I was writing Finding Mrs. Ford, it was exactly my age and stage. We briefly had Jillian Anderson attached to that, the one who played Maggie Thatcher in The Crown, and that went a little bit of a distance, and then when it didn’t happen, she stepped away, which was really too bad. But no, I don’t think so. But I could do a Hitchcock walk-on.
JE: Looking back on your active life, what would you say was your favorite professional role?
DR: Author is definitely my favorite. I feel it’s the most me. It’s been the chance I’ve had to express myself really in the way I want to and connect with other people in a meaningful way. Writing is my absolute favorite.
JE: What are you working on now?
DR: When my mother died, which is going on two years, I got a very strong download of an idea of a mother-daughter ghost story. Picture the relationship of the mother and the daughter in a movie like Terms of Endearment, but in a The Ghost and Mrs. Muir kind of story, where the mother dies. It’s a strained relationship. The daughter’s a writer. She’s in her mid-fifties, having a long patch of writer’s block. The mother comes through to her to tell her that something is going on in the neighborhood, and she has to intervene to stop a crime. I’m having a ball writing it.
Thank you.
Judith Erwin is a retired attorney, journalist, and award-winning author of romantic suspense and crime fiction, including the series Shepherd & Associates. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Florida Writers Association, and the FBI Citizens Academy Alumni Association.
