Husband Vanishes in New Thriller by Easton Grad

When she set out to write her first novel, Kate Moretti asked herself a question.

"I thought 'What is the worse thing that could happen to me?''' said Moretti, an Easton Area High School graduate.

The answers to that question formed the spine of Thought I Knew You, a new thriller that went on sale this week. 

She'll sign copies of "Thought I Knew You" and do a reading from the book at 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 9 at ConneXions Gallery. 

The "worse thing" was actually two things: something happening to her children, or something happening to her husband. 

Moretti rejected the first option right away, something she didn't want to think about. The second one was easier. What if her husband vanished?

In Thought I Knew You, protagonist Claire Barnes' husband, Greg, goes on a business trip and never returns. As she begins searching for Greg, Claire learns her husband wasn't the man she thought she knew.

At the same time, she's dealing with growing feelings for her friend Drew, who's assisting her in the search.

The book takes place in Clinton, N.J., but Moretti says Claire is basically a fictional version of herself. 

Claire is a technical writer, which is the only type of writing Moretti -- a scientist in the pharmaceutical industry -- had done before the novel.

"It was like a bucket list thing," Moretti said. "A friend of mine wrote a book. When she told me I was like 'I always wanted to do that.'"

Writing the book let Moretti into "a whole world I didn't know existed." 

With the first book, Moretti said she went in blind, knowing nothing about crafting a novel. She's at work on a second book -- 50,000 words so far -- and said she's been much more meticulous on putting it together.

"I know about POV [point of view], and I know about character arc," she said. "I know that in the first third of the book, this has to happen, in the second third of the book, this has to happen."

Moretti lives in Lower Nazareth with her two children and her husband, who was the basis for both male characters in her novel. He hasn't read it yet, she said.

"I've tried to reassure him," Moretti said, "that I don’t want to him to disappear."