Interview With Lish McBride, Author Of ‘Most Likely To Murder’

Yearbook superlatives are a time-honored tradition usually highlighting a student’s quirks, personality, or future. They can be clever like “Class Clown,” or “Worst Driver,” but also prophetic like “Most Likely to Succeed,” or “Most Likely to be in the Olympics.” But what if they weren’t so nice? What if you opened your last high school yearbook and saw your name, or your friends, with the banner, “Life of the Party, Dead in the Bathroom,” or “Netflix & Killed?” Or even, “Most Likely to Sleep with the Fishes?” This is what the students at the small school in Lish McBride’s new teen slasher, Most Likely to Murder, are dealing with while trying track down a killer to save their friends and themselves.

Heralded as One of Us is Lying meets Heathers, Most Likely to Murder is funny and creative, heartfelt, and yes, bloody!

Yearbook superlatives are given a killer twist when Meadowvale High’s “Most Likely To” titles predict the gruesome deaths of students and teachers, leaving two best friends to unmask the killer before their own predictions come true.

PopHorror: I read your book and I really enjoyed it!

Lish McBride: Yay!

PopHorror: I’m super excited to talk to you about it today. What inspired the story for Most Likely to Murder?

Lish McBride: It’s kind of funny. My son gave me the premise, essentially. He came to dinner two years ago and was like, “Hey, I’ve got a book idea for you,” which my family does a lot but usually it’s not a book idea. It’s usually like, it’s great but I can’t use that. But this one, he was like, “Hey, what if the yearbooks came out and instead of saying, ‘Most likely to succeed’ and all those things, it said how they’re going to die?” In his pitch, it was going to be like a mystical force that did this. No, it would make more sense if this is on purpose. He looks at me and goes, “It’s a good idea, isn’t it?” and I was like, “Yeah! Did you see it anywhere? Did you see it on the internet?” and he was like, “No, no.” I was like, oh man, and he’s like, “You didn’t need a new book idea.” And I sure didn’t because I was on contract already for Red in Tooth and Claw, which is the horror western thing I did, but it was such a good idea and there was so much I could do with it. Rather adorably, his girlfriend was like, “Well, it’s your idea. Do you want to try to write a book?” and he goes, “No, that sounds like work. You write it, you pitch it. If you sell it, I want a cut. I would like a percentage.” I was like, “That’s not how this works.”

PopHorror: That’s what the dedication in the book is about!

Lish McBride: Yeah, a hundred percent. It was just something that his brain coughed up at some point and then I just ran with it. So, it’ll never happen again. I’ll never have someone just hand me a plot.

PopHorror: You never know!

Lish McBride: You never know!

PopHorror: I much prefer that you went the slasher route versus a mystical force, personally, because that’s what I like. Thank you for that. And that’s adorable that he wanted to give you this idea.

Lish McBride: I don’t think he’s read it yet, by the way. I think he’s just like, oh good, it’s out. Just zero interest.

PopHorror: Was there anything that you were adamant about keeping in the final draft, no matter what?

Lish McBride: I have a really good editor, and I don’t feel like there’s really anything that I had to fight for. He’s always very much like, “Okay, cool, how can we build this up more?” I always wanted Rick and Martina’s friendship to be what it was because they’re such the core of the story. I never really had to stick to my guns because no one challenged me on anything. It was very much, “Okay, and…” and we would just build on it.

PopHorror: I really like their friendship. I love ride-or-die friendships. You kind of need a strong support system when you’re going through something like this and you’re afraid you’re going to die and your friends are dying. I think friendship is very important.

Lish McBride: That age especially. I occasionally teach writing YA to other writers and one of the big things is the importance of the friend group because developmentally at that age, that’s the most important thing. Parents are still around and that’s great, but their friends actually rank higher. That’s good. It’s healthy that that happens. I think especially for my high school experience, my friends are what got me through and I think that’s true for a lot of people.

PopHorror: Yes, and it’s so important at that age. If your book was to be made into a movie, who would you cast as Rick, Martina, and Nika?

Lish McBride: I don’t know! Oh, man. I’m not sure. I’m trying to think of young actors right now and my mind is just blanking out.

PopHorror: I actually get that answer a lot!

Lish McBride: I don’t think I pictured anyone specific. Sometimes I’ll do that but I tend to do that more for my adult books where I’ll picture specific people to mold the character after, like physically. But yeah, this one I didn’t do it. I’m trying to think of who’s young and up-and-coming and I’m blanking out. I’ve got nothing for you.

PopHorror: I have nothing either! I’m horrible at this. 

Lish McBride: For me, for casting with stuff, I’m less about them getting the physical look accurate and more about them getting the vibes right. Do they get the character?

PopHorror: I agree! Can you tell us about the moment that you realized you wanted to be a writer?

Lish McBride: I think I started wanting to be one so young that I didn’t actually have a moment. As soon as I figured out that people wrote books, that’s what I wanted. I was really, really young. I started reading when I was three. I had a backup plan for a while, which was I was going to go be a veterinarian and then I worked in a vet clinic for a little bit and let me tell you, nope! That job is real rough. I was like, yeah, I don’t want to do this, this seems actually awful. I started working there when I was 17 and yeah, it was scarring. No thanks. I was lucky that the majority of my family was very supportive because I went to college for it and spent a lot of money to get degrees in creative writing and I think a lot of parents would talk their kids out of that. But definitely one of mine was not happy about it but my mom was very supportive and my brothers. I think we’re all surprised that it got this far. It’s just something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve always made up stories.

PopHorror: I love that! And now we get to enjoy them. I have just one last question for you today. What is your favorite scary movie?

Lish McBride: That’s a really hard question. It’s sort of like, what mood am I in? I lean, obviously, heavily towards horror comedy. The one I watch the most is probably The Lost Boys, which I don’t find particularly scary, but it is a horror film. It’s one of my favorites.

Thank you so much to Lish for taking the time to chat with us. Most Likely to Murder is now available wherever you buy books!