Local Atlanta authors Meredith Lavender and Kendall Shores will release their second novel, “Perfect Life,” as a duo on July 7. The sequel to “Happy Wife” will be celebrated with a launch event at Eagle Eye Book Shop on July 8.
Lavender, a TV writer and producer, and Shores, with a background in grant writing and corporate communications, first met at a back-to-school event for their children. Their creative partnership began in 2023, working on “Happy Wife,” a suspenseful, domestic mystery described as “a clever and subversive novel that explores marriage, wealth, and the secrets that lurk behind closed doors.”
Shores grew up in the duology’s Florida setting. “I’d always wanted to write a story about Winter Park,” she said. “I had an idea for a story that I really didn’t want to give up on, and I knew that Meredith had experience finishing stories, seeing them through. We were out for a walk one day in Chastain Park, just doing mom stuff, and I was like, ‘You would never want to work on this with me, would you?’ and she said yes.”
The two naturally fell into a synergy. “We worked in very collaborative writing environments,” Lavender said. “We certainly, for the first book, found the process of having an outline, and then trading chapters, taking turns drafting different things, whatever we felt we had a handle on, and then kind of going back and forth and editing each other, and then ultimately landing with a manuscript that we could both look at. It was familiar to us.”
“Happy Wife” was published in 2025, and it was chosen as a pick for Read With Jenna, the TODAY show’s book club hosted by Jenna Bush Hager. “‘Happy Wife’ is one of those delicious, fun summer books that you’ll open on the beach and never put down,” Hager wrote of the novel.
“Perfect Life” takes place in the same city, but follows a new main character, Nora, who is best friends with the first installment’s main character, Este. “The second book was a lot more complicated, not from a friction point of view, but because ‘Happy Wife’ had been so well received,” Shores said. “I think there was a process of finding our way back to the characters and kind of cutting out some of the noise and relearning the world from a different point of view, because Este, as a character, is a lot more complicated, I think, than Nora.”
The “Perfect Life” launch event on July 8 at 7 p.m. will feature a signing, discussion, and Q&A. Eagle Eye Book Shop, a beloved indie bookstore in Decatur, has hosted notable names like Brandon Sanderson, Jay Kristoff, and Karin Slaughter. “Eagle Eye is a really cool home for authors,” Shores said. “I think we’ve noticed there are places that do it really well, and that know how to invite a community of folks into their walls, and they do a great job.”
As for the future of the Lavender and Shore’s Winter Park mystery world, a third installment is in progress. Though the duo have individual projects, they hope to continue writing together, even perhaps expanding to new genres someday. Lavender said, “I think both of us are always looking around the bend at the next thing.”
To attend the launch event, purchase a copy of the book from Eagle Eye Book Shop.
