Spotlight & Giveaway: The Lies We Conjure by Sarah Henning

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Sarah Henning to HJ!

Hi Sarah and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, The Lies We Conjure!

Hey, everyone! I’m so happy to be at HJ!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

I’ve been calling this book “Knives Out with magic” since I wrote the very first pitch. If you like closed-room murder mysteries but wish it featured witches, The Lies We Conjure is for you.
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

One of my favorite quotes, without context:

“Memory is a wild beast,” Marsyas answers with a dismissive wave, bracelets swinging. “Hard to chase, hard to tame, and never what you’re expecting when you pin it down. As long as there’s some distance to it, a memory is exactly what a good suggestion says it is.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• My debut, Sea Witch, is often called an “Ursula origin story” even though the main character, Evie, is based on the original sea witch in Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” and has nothing to do with the Disney version. Not that I don’t love Disney, or the short-hand for what Sea Witch is about. So, for fun, I named the head sorcerer in this book “Ursula.” Look, folks, I finally wrote an actual “Ursula book.”
• Speaking of names, I think I may have enjoyed naming the characters in this book more than any other—and I’m a nerd for names. Finding the right one for each character, while considering how each name fit in with their family, their personality, and their line of magic was so much fun. No shade to the contemporary rom-coms I write, but naming witches is the best. Like, a Blood witch named Sanguine? How fun is that?
• The Lies We Conjure was originally entitled “The Magic of Lies”…which felt too on-the-nose. And who can resist “conjure” as a verb? It’s so evocative.
• The setting is an area of Colorado my family has visited every summer for more than twenty years.
• 5. The No. 1 song on my playlist for The Lies We Conjure is “Delicate” by Taylor Swift. I love that song and the way Taylor gets across the feeling of being at your lowest point when finding someone. There are definitely shades of that very feeling in this book.

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

My heroine, Ruby, is in over her head. She’s pretending to be someone she’s not, just learned magic is real, and is laser-focused on figuring out how she and her sister can survive this mess they’ve found themselves in. Meanwhile, my hero, Auden, just lost his grandmother in a sudden and gruesome way and is tasked with not only acting as the executor of her will, but also in helping his family protect her legacy. Both of them are stressed, locked inside a spell with a potential killer, and running around, trying to figure things out against a ticking clock. All that said, they still have this connection that neither of them can deny from the moment they “meet.” This is striking to Auden in particular because he knew the person Ruby is pretending to be—a Death witch named Lavinia—a decade ago, and they weren’t exactly friends. But this version of “Lavinia”? She’s kind and down-to-earth in a way that seems too good to be true, considering how she was as a kid. Ruby doesn’t have the background knowledge to get what “her” previous relationship was with Auden, and though she prides herself with not being as crush-crazy as her sister, Wren, she can’t deny that Auden is both handsome and dryly amusing. And when he makes the snap decision to lie to protect her and Wren? His heart takes her down, hook, line, and sinker.

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

I don’t think this is a spoiler, because clever readers can intuit their way there from the book jacket copy, but there’s a scene where Ruby and her sister Wren lock themselves away in an ornate bathroom and freak out because they’ve just realized magic is real. Wren is a literal drama queen and pretty impulsive, and because of that, as a character she had a tendency in my first drafts to run away with scenes and just make me cackle. I always had to rein her in (and Ruby plays her straight man). The bathroom freakout scene was one I had to pull back on because there were so many ways for Wren to react to not only the death of their dinner host, Ursula, but how the magic made its presence known after the woman died.

A little snippet of Wren, hijacking the scene with her way with words:

[Wren] shakes her head and launches into a low rant, aimed at the running water. “I really, really believed it was a murder mystery party and Marsyas was in on it—classic red herring for her to go missing and then turn up as victim number two. But then Ursula’s soul gave us literal orders before the earth breaded her body like a chicken tender. That was magic, wasn’t it? It had to be.”

Her eyes flash to mine in the mirror and I nod.

I can’t say it—magic.

Magic is the only explanation and yet, that word and what it means has lodged in my windpipe as if it’s too much of a reach.

Nothing computes. Well, other than that this situation is all wrong and the dead body is only a small factor in that equation.

Readers should read this book….

If they wish The Inheritance Games had magic.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I have two books announced I can talk about. In fall of 2025, I have an upper-middle-grade rom-com set against the exciting world of high school track called Running Back to You. Perhaps of a little more interest to readers of The Lies We Conjure, I have a YA contemporary fantasy coming in summer 2026 called Such a Witch that’s pitched as Clueless meets Wednesday. It’s part fluffy rom-com, part murder-mystery and literal witch hunt and so very fun.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: For HJ readers, I’ve got a signed copy of The Lies We Conjure plus an adjustable mood ring reminiscent of the head sorcerer’s ring in the book! Personalization possible, if interested. For US readers only.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: What would be your first move if you were locked on an estate with a bunch of hot witches and had just learned magic was real? Oh yeah, and one of those hot witches is probably a killer…

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Excerpt from The Lies We Conjure:

The old woman arrives at the Ye Olde Falafel Shoppe not with an order, but with a question.
“Are you sisters?”
As usual, Wren is manning the register and flirting her way to much bigger tips than I can get, while I fulfill the orders as they slide through the kitchen window of Grand County Renaissance
Festival’s most popular (and only) falafel stand.
“Yes, my lady.” Wren smiles at the woman, her festival-mandated British accent sweet in air equally scented with all things fried, excessive sunscreen, and the stink of more than one horse decked out as a knight’s noble steed.
“How old?” the lady presses, lifting huge sunglasses into her cloud of silver hair. Deep set and large, her dark eyes sweep between us, and it’s like she’s checking our features off on a list—tall,
pale, brunette, check, check, check. The lunch rush is over, and the moment I slide an extra vat of hummus to a man dressed as fox Robin Hood—tail and all—and he disappears with a tip of his cap, we’re alone. No customers stack up behind her as she continues to peer at us instead
of choosing off the menu printed on a medieval “parchment” hanging behind Wren. “Sixteen? Seventeen? Irish twins?”
“Yes, my lady,” Wren answers again, jabbing a thumb in my direction. She announces in her perfectly posh accent, “Ruby’s older, but don’t let the age gap fool you, I’m the brains of this operation.”
The woman chuckles, her attention lingering on our faces with building excitement. I can’t explain why but my gut tightens.
“Their accents are just like yours. Tepidly British and put on for an occasion.” She says mostly to herself before turning to me and ordering, “Let me hear yours.”
For some reason it feels impossible to tell how old our nosy customer actually is—she
could be sixty or pushing a hundred. Either way, I realize I’ve seen her before. I’ve served her before. At least two weeks in a row.
I gesture at the menu, and prod in my fake accent, which is way less impressive than Wren’s, “Is there anything I can get you? You ordered the number two with jalapeños last week, didn’t you?”
Wren mutters “Pushy” under her breath. Yet rather than answer my question or agree with my sister’s assessment, the old woman’s obvious elation only grows—her heart-shaped
face expanding and elongating in such a way that it resembles an exclamation point.
“Good.”
She then precedes to plant her elbows on the counter and gesture for us to lean in close.
Wren, happily coasting on her four semesters in high school improv class, does so without hesitation, but I must admit to being a little less enthusiastic. The only reason I’m slinging falafel in a wench outfit is because I need more money for my pitiful college fund, and this is far outside the parameters of what we’re paid to do.
Not to mention this is the last weekend of the Ren Fest and we literally have five hours left on the job. Our customer ignores my frown, and greets our combined attention with an eager smile outlined in matte maroon lipstick.
“Girls, my name is Marsyas Blackgate. I’d like to hire each of you to pretend to be my granddaughters at a dinner party at Hegemony Manor—do you know it? It’s just outside of Wood Rose.”
Wren’s eyes nearly pop out of her head. “The Hegemony Manor? Of course we know it! Gothic perfection on the hill, with the turrets and the windows and the Wednesday Addams moodiness. Our mom just loved it.”
My breath hitches at the mention of Mom. She did love that place. There’s no way this woman—Marsyas?—could know that, but something unsettling plops in my gut.
Beyond the old woman’s rounded shoulders is a steady stream of humanity wandering by, gnawing on massive turkey legs, crinkling maps, and brandishing kiddie-sized wooden swords. Not a single
Ren Fest guest is looking our way. I drop both my hideous accent and my voice. “You want us to impersonate your granddaughters? May I ask why?”
She blinks as if it’s obvious. “You look just like them.”
“But we aren’t them.”
Marsyas straightens and, with a dignified sniff, draws a photograph from somewhere beneath the voluminous fabric of her black caftan. In it, she beams at the camera, bracketed by two tall, pale
brunettes. Their heads are smooshed together, the iconic pyramid of the Louvre in the background.
I have to admit, we do look like them.
“My girls live abroad with their mother. I miss them dearly and though they miss me, they haven’t been back stateside in a decade. I’m invited every year to a special dinner party at Hegemony
Manor, and every year the other families expect to see Lavinia and Kaysa. Every year they’re disappointed, and I’m disappointed too.”
Marsyas’s chin wobbles, her dark eyes shine, and suddenly she looks like she might be a thousand years old. If it’s an act, her improv lessons have been far more extensive than Wren’s. “This year,
I want to show off my girls.”
Wren immediately claws at my hand, her expression pleading. I know my sister just wants to help, even if it’s some next-level psychological bullshit that this woman is propositioning us to
pretend to be her living, breathing granddaughters for a night so that her friends will think that they love her enough to cross the Atlantic.
“I—” I start. That tremor of unease in my gut is now a 5.0 on the Richter scale.
But before I can put that into words enough to pull Wren aside to discuss it, Marsyas lays out twenty one-hundred-dollar bills on the counter.
“I’ll give you each a thousand up front and another thousand after dinner.” Her gaze sweeps between the pair of us, that spark returning. “I’m sure you will find that reasonable.”
My jaw drops.
That is more money than we’ve earned—combined—in our six-weekend run at the Ren Fest.
More than I alone earn in a month at my part-time job as a bookseller at Agatha’s Apothecary & Paperback Emporium.
More than enough to pad my college fund so that it isn’t completely laughable.
It’s enough that it’s too good to be true.
So, of course, Wren immediately accepts the offer for both of us.
“Why, that’s more than reasonable, Miss Marsyas. When’s the party?”
In answer, the old woman says, “Call me Nona,” and lays a handwritten card atop the cash advance.
Saturday night. Formal. Wear solid black. I’ ll be in touch.
“Wait, what—”
I glance up, a new line of questions forming and then immediately dying on my lips.
Marsyas Blackgate isn’t there.
I lean on the counter, craning to see farther left, then right, ready to chase her down for more information, a contact number, more specifics about the deal.
But she’s vanished.
Wren eagerly gathers the bills and stuffs them into the inside pocket of her wench’s apron. She’s neglected the card, and I snatch it up and flip it over, hoping for at least one answer to the flood of
questions in my churning mind.
Instead, I find one final order. Or maybe a threat.
Tell no one.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Book Info:

Knives Out meets The Inheritance Games with magic in this standalone supernatural thriller by Sarah Henning: thirteen witches, a locked-room murder, and two non-magical sisters trapped in a deadly game of Clue.

Ruby and her sister Wren are normal, middle-class Colorado high school students working a summer job at the local Renaissance Fest to supplement their meager college savings.

So when an eccentric old lady asks them to impersonate her long-absent grandchildren at a fancy dinner party at the jaw-dropping rate of two grand—each—for a single night…Wren insists it’s a no-brainer. Make some cash, have some fun, do a good deed.

But less than an hour into the evening at the mysterious Hegemony Manor, Ruby is sure she must have lost her mind to have agreed to this.

The hostess is dead, the gates are locked, and a magical curse ensures no one can leave until they solve both her murder and the riddles she left behind—in just three days. Because everyone else at this party is a powerful witch. And if the witches realize Ruby and Wren are imposters? The sisters won’t make it out of Hegemony Manor alive.
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Meet the Author:

Sarah Henning is the author of several books for young adults, including THE LIES WE CONJURE, plus the Indies Introduce/Indies Next selection and Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection SEA WITCH, and its sequel, SEA WITCH RISING; THE PRINCESS WILL SAVE YOU, THE QUEEN WILL BETRAY YOU, and THE KING WILL KILL YOU. Her first middle grade book, MONSTER CAMP, was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award. Her contemporary books include as well as THROW LIKE A GIRL and its companion book, IT’S ALL IN HOW YOU FALL; she also appears in the girls-in-sports anthology, OUT OF OUR LEAGUE. When not writing, she runs ultramarathons, dotes on her two kids, and takes walks with her husband and fluffy corgi. Sarah lives in Lawrence, Kansas, hometown of Langston Hughes, William S. Burroughs, and a really good basketball team.
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