The Lies We Trade by Kristine Delano
Author Interview + Book & Author Info + Author Pet Corner!
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The Lies We Trade
A high-powered Wall Street career, a beautiful family in a quiet suburban neighborhood―she seems to have everything. Which means she has everything to lose.
Meredith Hansel should be having the best week of her life. After establishing herself as a portfolio manager at a prestigious Wall Street firm, she’s in the national spotlight for the innovative funds she created. But as Meredith prepares to celebrate, the plates she’s kept spinning for years begin to crash: Her strained marriage reaches a breaking point. Her conscientious teenage daughter acts out under mysterious pressures. Someone vandalizes her home with disturbing graffiti. And Betsey, her most trusted ally at the financial firm, goes rogue, and Meredith is forced to sign a restraining order against her.
Then her worlds collide when she receives a thumb drive and a cryptic note from Betsey threatening to reveal a secret that could have devastating effects on Meredith’s family . . . unless she can figure out what Betsey wants and deliver it in time.
As Meredith begins to dig into the data, however, she begins to suspect that it’s no coincidence her life is crumbling. That maybe what’s happening to her family is connected to what’s boiling beneath the surface at her investment company. Soon Meredith realizes there’s only one way to avoid taking the fall, and it all hinges on Betsey’s true motives. Was she really threatening Meredith or trying to warn her?
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The Lies We Trade Author Interview with Kristine Delano
The Lies We Trade centers on Meredith Hansel. What would you like readers to know about her?
Meredith Hansel is Wall Street’s rising star. She is brilliant, ambitious, and on the verge of a career-defining win. From the outside, she looks like someone who has figured it all out, but beneath that polished surface, she’s barely balancing work and home. Her marriage is strained by long hours and unspoken resentments, and her teenage daughter has quietly pulled away. Meredith hides the cracks, even from herself, because projecting perfection feels safer than exposing vulnerability.
When a mysterious envelope arrives containing sensitive data and a cryptic message from her former colleague, Meredith is forced to confront how fragile that carefully constructed life really is. The threat isn’t just professional. It reaches into her home and marriage. To protect everything and everyone she loves, Meredith must decide who she can trust and how far she’s willing to go before the secrets she’s buried detonate and tear her life apart.
The Lies We Trade investigates a high stakes investment company on Wall Street—a world you know personally. How much of the book is based in reality and how much is fiction?
My time on Wall Street gave me a front-row seat to the drama and enough material to fill quite a few thrillers. But no, The Lies We Trade isn’t a diary in disguise. My experiences enabled me to create an authentic world of high finance, but nothing in Meredith’s story is lifted wholesale from my own career. Betsey, Dave, Terrence and others are stitched together from little quirks and big personalities I encountered in my career.
As for the plot, it’s my wild imagining of what could happen if our cravings for power, influence, and money ran completely off the rails and what kind of courage it might take to set things right.
The Lies We Trade is set in New York City, a place you commuted to from Maine. What do you miss and not miss about the travel? What was it like to write about such an iconic location?
Throughout my career, I commuted extensively to major cities across the country and around the world. One constant was the decision my husband and I made to not uproot our family from our home on the shores of Highland Lake in southern Maine. Long before remote work became common, I was managing teams and building relationships virtually, traveling when necessary and returning home whenever possible.
Setting The Lies We Trade in New York City felt essential. It’s the epicenter of high finance and the city that shaped my career and sharpened my instincts. Writing about it allowed me to revisit familiar streets and moments, especially around Midtown and Battery Park. I returned to Manhattan a couple of times while writing to take notes, letting the energy of the city feed the story. I don’t miss the constant travel, but I sometimes miss the charged intensity that New York brings to everything it touches.
The Lies We Trade also has a family and a crumbling marriage as an integral part of the story. Tell us about the domestic aspects of the book. How does the personal inform and interact with the professional in Meredith’s life?
Meredith is ambitious and highly competent—an empowering combination professionally but can be lethal to a marriage. She and her husband, Clint, love each other, yet they’ve stopped truly communicating. Instead, they rely on assumptions, unspoken judgments, and the quiet accumulation of resentment.
Unlike the explosive, dramatic portrayals of failing marriages in media, theirs erodes silently. In my experience, relationships under pressure rarely collapse in flames. They fade through disengagement. As the chaos at work intensifies, Meredith pulls back emotionally, no longer able to meet the demands of her career and her marriage at the same time. What once made them a team now makes them suspicious of each other. Over the course of the novel, readers witness both the fractures and the fragile possibilities of love—how easily it can be damaged, and how much courage it takes to repair it when everything else is falling apart.
You enjoy both scuba diving and skiing. What do you love about those two very different sports, any good stories to share with us?
I grew up on Guam. The ocean was woven into the fabric of my formative years. One of my favorite things to do is spear fishing to rid our fragile reefs of invasive species. I’m a pretty good shot and I adore the challenge. I take any opportunity to swim in the ocean. I also enjoy snow skiing.
Living in Maine, you either embrace the winter or endure it. As a family we travel to Sugarloaf, in western Maine to chase each other down the mountain. I am the often the back of the pack but the first to return to prep snacks and drinks during après ski time.
What are you working on now?
I signed a two-book contract with Tyndale House and just turned in my manuscript to my editors for an estranged sisters book. Although also set in high finance, the structure is quite different with the chapters and timelines weaving a story of betrayal. What happens when one sister’s big break fractures the success of the other?
Words of Wisdom for Aspiring Writers:
I wrote three novels before I landed my agent, and my debut, The Lies We Trade, is my fourth. My advice is to not be precious about the words. Write to get better at writing. Take classes. Join critique groups. Read widely and focus on your genre. There are lots of different ways to tell a story, find yours through writing.
Author Pet Corner!
Henry, part Australian Shepherd, part Bichon, and mostly throw pillow, is my writing partner.
He is a great family dog, patiently waiting for his walks and always there for an encouraging cuddle when I struggle with a plot twist. Thank you, sweet boy.
The Lies We Trade Author Kristine Delano
Kristine Delano is a former Wall Street executive turned award-winning author of domestic thrillers set in the high-stakes finance world. She hosts the We Talk Careers podcast and mentors young executives on work-life balance.
Her faith fuels her passion for helping women navigate their calling. When she’s not writing or reading, she enjoys scuba diving, playing games with friends, and chasing her family down the ski slopes of Maine. Connect with her online at kristinedelano.com.
Thanks so much for featuring me!
My pleasure! Thank you for sharing your work with me and my readers.
Elena