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Deborah Goodrich Royce

Biography

Deborah Goodrich Royce

Deborah Goodrich Royce’s REEF ROAD, a national bestseller, was named one of the best books of 2023 by Kirkus Reviews and an Indie Next pick by the ABA. RUBY FALLS won the Zibby Award for Best Plot Twist, and FINDING MRS. FORD was hailed by Forbes, Book Riot and "Good Morning America." Her latest novel, BEST BOY, will be published on February 24, 2026.

Her Ocean House Author Series --- in partnership with Martin House Books and WCRI --- brings world-class authors like Sarah Ferguson, Emma Straub, Chris Bohjalian and Katie Couric to Watch Hill. With fellow authors Luanne Rice and Amy Scheibe, she created the Deer Mountain Writers’ Retreat in the Catskills.

Deborah writes a book column for Providence Monthly and Hey Rhody magazines. She began as an actress on "All My Children" and in multiple films before transitioning to the role of story editor at Miramax Films, developing Emma and early versions of Chicago and A Wrinkle in Time.

Deborah holds a bachelor’s degree and two honorary doctorates, from both Lake Erie College and the University of Rhode Island. With her husband, Chuck, Deborah restored the Avon Theatre, Ocean House Hotel, Deer Mountain Inn, United Theatre, Martin House Books, and numerous Main Street revitalization projects in Rhode Island and the Catskills. She serves on multiple governing and advisory boards.

Photo Credit: Lydia MacLear

Books by Deborah Goodrich Royce

by Deborah Goodrich Royce - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Viveca Stevenson has it all: a handsome and successful husband, an adorable 10-year-old son, and a coastal dream house in Greenwich, Connecticut. She has a solid group of girlfriends and is content with the afterglow of the film career she’s left behind. But when a threatening letter arrives --- from a man she does not remember --- it cracks open a part of her past she thought was buried for good. A terrifying chain of events is set in motion, forcing Viveca to confront what happened on a shattering Halloween night in high school when she had a different name, a different face and a different voice. Who is the man contacting her now, and was he really the best boy on her most famous film, Misty? Why can’t she remember him --- or that night?

by Deborah Goodrich Royce - Fiction, Mystery, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

A young woman’s life seems perfect until her family goes missing. A writer lives alone with her dog and collects arcane murder statistics. What each of them stands to lose as they sneak around the do-not-enter tape blocking Reef Road beach is exposed by the steady tightening of the cincture encircling them. In a nod to the true crime that inspired it, Deborah Goodrich Royce’s REEF ROAD probes unhealed generational scars in a wrenching and original work of fiction. It is both stunning and sexy, and like a bystander surprised by a curtain left open, you won’t be able to look away.

by Deborah Goodrich Royce - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

On a brilliantly sunny July day, six-year-old Ruby is abandoned by her father in the suffocating dark of a Tennessee cave. Twenty years later, transformed into soap opera star Eleanor Russell, she is fired under dubious circumstances. Fleeing to Europe, she marries a glamorous stranger named Orlando Montague and keeps her past closely hidden. Together, Eleanor and Orlando start afresh in LA. Setting up house in a storybook cottage in the Hollywood Hills, Eleanor is cast in a dream role --- the lead in a remake of REBECCA. As she immerses herself in that eerie gothic tale, Orlando’s personality changes, ghosts of her past re-emerge, and Eleanor fears she is not the only person in her marriage with a secret.

by Deborah Goodrich Royce - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Early one morning in the summer of 2014, the FBI arrives to question Mrs. Ford about a man from Iraq --- a Chaldean Christian from Mosul --- where ISIS has just seized control. Sammy Fakhouri is his name, and they have taken him into custody, picked up on his way to her house. Back in the summer of 1979, on the outskirts of a declining Detroit, college coed Susan meets charismatic and reckless Annie. They are an unlikely pair of friends, but they each see something in the other --- something they’d like to possess. Together, the girls navigate the minefields of a down-market disco where they work their summer jobs. It’s a world filled with pretty girls and powerful men, some of whom --- like Sammy Fakhouri --- happen to be Iraqi Chaldeans. What happened in that summer of 1979 when Susan and Annie met? Why is Sammy looking for Susan all these years later? And why is Mrs. Ford lying?