Associate Professor of Law Sara Ochs published her second thriller, “This Stays Between Us,” this summer. Set around a college study abroad trip to Australia that turns deadly, the narrative jumps timelines and leads readers on a suspense-filled race for the truth.
By day, Associate Professor Sara Ochs teaches legal writing and international criminal law to Elon Law students. By night (or often, early morning), she channels that expertise into authoring twisty crime thrillers set in faraway places.
Her second novel, “This Stays Between Us,” hit shelves this summer, following the success of her 2024 debut, “The Resort.” Published by Sourcebooks Landmark in the U.S. and Transworld, an imprint of Penguin Random House, in the U.K., the new novel follows a study abroad trip gone wrong — set in Australia and inspired by Ochs’ own time as a student there.
“No one was murdered while I was abroad, thankfully,” Ochs said, laughing. “But I combined elements of two very different trips I took there — an adventure-focused, two-week spring break trip, and a class trip to a ghost town in the Outback that used to be a mining town — and built a story that evolved from there.”
Ochs celebrated the novel’s release with a book launch event at Scuppernong Books in downtown Greensboro on July 19. Surrounded by friends, family and law school colleagues and students, Ochs discussed the novel and her writing process with Holly Larrabee, a Raleigh-based Instagram book reviewer.
The dual-timeline mystery begins when human remains are discovered a decade after a college student’s disappearance. Ochs weaves past and present perspectives, teasing readers with shifting truths and unreliable memories. An avid reader and fan of mystery novels, Ochs aimed to delight readers with unexpected twists and turns, so much so that one she devised late in the editing process surprised even her.
Writing her second book proved harder than the first, Ochs said.
“There was a lot of pressure. Readers had responded well to ‘The Resort,’ and I didn’t want to let them or myself down,” she said. “I definitely went through what they call ‘second-book syndrome.’”
Juggling a teaching career, a toddler and a creative passion requires discipline. Ochs tries to write daily, especially during school breaks and nap times.
“I try to keep my priorities straight,” she said. “Motherhood comes first. But I try to carve out time every day — sometimes just a little — to write.”
She’s already begun work on her next destination thriller, tentatively set in Portugal. And she’s even toyed with the idea of setting a future mystery inside a law school. Her love of mysteries, and study of the craft of writing them, has been kindled over the years, devouring novels by authors like Ruth Ware, Lucy Foley and Lucy Clarke.
“I love to read, and that is definitely something I do every day. I’m drawn to thrillers with a strong sense of place. I want to be transported when I read, and I try to give readers that same experience.”