Luanne Rice

i can’t wait to be in conversation with the brilliant Elissa Bass at Bank Square Books tomorrow, thursday july 23rd! please join us at 6 pm.💙📚
https://banksquarebooks.com/event/2026-07-23/luanne-rice-until-midnight-author-talk-and-signing

thank you to the amazingly talented and incredibly supportive John B. Valeri / for this interview in CrimeReads. i always love our talks—whether about writing, reading, family, or life in general. he does so much for the book community (he even has a “little free library”!) ❤️📚❤️

📚 What happens when one of New England's most iconic wedding destinations becomes the setting for a murder mystery?

In her latest novel, Until Midnight, bestselling author Luanne Rice returns to the Ocean House in Watch Hill, where a rehearsal dinner is interrupted by a shocking secret and a bride-to-be becomes caught in a suspenseful mystery.

In an interview with The Day, Rice shares what inspired the story, why she chose the Ocean House as its setting and how real-life experiences helped shape the novel's themes.

📖 Read the full story in our link in bio.🔗

thank you to kristina dorsey for this profile in the day! my mother would be so proud! i really enjoyed our interview—kristy is a brilliant writer, so generously covers the arts in our area, and illuminates what a special place this is. i am very grateful to her. The Day is an absolutely amazing newspaper. please subscribe (link below)! also, support your local papers, wherever you live. i say that with love for all of you. 🥰❤️📚📰

https://theday.com/news/907055/murder-in-watch-hill-luanne-rices-new-thriller-returns-readers-to-the-ocean-house/

“it was the perfect day for the wedding”… that is the first line of UNTIL MIDNIGHT, out today! i am so happy and grateful to be celebrating at the Ocean House RI. it is breezy and blustery here today, and i can hear the bell buoy tolling off the point, giving the feeling that anything could happen! i suppose that is perfect for the launch of a thriller. as the book jacket says, “a fairy-tale romance to die for”… 💛🌊💛

thank you for lunch and a wonderful interview, Rick Koster! since UNTIL MIDNIGHT is set at Ocean House RI, the verandah seemed the perfect place to meet. the interview will be in the CT Examiner … i will be be sure to share it!

here are two wonderful people from the Ocean House RI…and the only two who appear as characters in UNTIL MIDNIGHT! both brian goldrick and lauren distefano are so dear to me. brian was also in LAST NIGHT… he is a great friend, a fellow cat-lover, and a huge champion of writers. when pages and prosecco book club came to the ocean house, he made sure to introduce them to Deborah Goodrich Royce's and my novels.
lauren’s character in UNTIL MIDNIGHT is “frances”…that is lauren’s middle name, but there is another connection. lauren told me this, and i was so moved: “My grandmother, Frances, was an avid reader. She and her sister went to the library weekly to get books to entertain themselves. Full circle moment ✨.” no wonder lauren loves books so much and is such a good writer herself! 🩵🩵🩵

it’s june 1st, the first day of june…and UNTIL MIDNIGHT comes out june 30th, the last day of june. i love the symmetry.
(emelina and orion are on the table behind me, as you can see in the other photos).

When there are two full moons in a calendar month, the second is a “blue moon”. There is one tonight. It’s also the title of my fifth novel.
It comes from the old blood-and-whiskey soaked honky-tonk Blue Moon section of Newport, Rhode Island. It no longer exists but was roughly where Brick Marketplace is now. My grandmother used to tell us about dating my grandfather. It was 1917, during World War l, and he was in the navy, stationed in Newport. Mim would take the Mount Hope steamer down from Providence, and on Saturday nights when he was on “liberty”, they went to a bar in the Blue Moon to meet their friends, hear music, and dance up a storm. They later married and had my mother.
I started writing the novel late one fall, when the weather had turned cold, with storms blowing in. One day I heard a radio report of a local fishing boat missing in the North Atlantic. The Coast Guard search began, continued over Thanksgiving, and was about to be called off when flares were sighted. Suddenly there was hope...but then the rumors began, that the flares had been set off by other fishing boats, doing anything they could to keep the search going.
That kind of love and loyalty hit me hard. I decided to write about a family fishing business in Mount Hope (aka Newport, named after the steamer Mim took each weekend) Rhode Island. The Keating clan owned a fleet of boats, then sold the catch at Lobsterville, their wharfside restaurant. There are three generations of Keatings, all with their own loves, hardships, secrets, and joys.
I love the night scene on the hardcover jacket, with the family restaurant’s neon lobster lit up, with the moon rising above. I REALLY love the night scene on the cover of UNTIL MIDNIGHT—my thirty-ninth novel—a thriller—coming out June 30th. It shows the Ocean House RI all aglow, the hotel as magical as it looks in real life, beckoning us in. Can you see the full moon just starting to rise out of the sea? I love that enchanted touch. Do you think it could be a blue moon—portending a wedding and murder? Thank you to the wonderful Thomas & Mercer jacket designer Ploy Siripant.
Don’t forget to look for the blue moon tonight! 💙🌕📚🦞🌊💛

please come celebrate the launch of UNTIL MIDNIGHT at the ocean house author series on july 1! the novel takes place at that storied hotel…come for the view, a sea breeze, champagne, and a conversation with my dear friend — wonderful author Deborah Goodrich Royce. 💛🌊💛📚💛

👉 https://www.ohmcollection.com/events #!/event/04b74094-4336-446e-aed7-45102ad20a45