The Tutor by Courtney Psak
Author Interview + Book & Author Info
Don’t miss any ITW Debut Author interviews! Click the link here.
The Tutor
Letting her into your home was your first mistake…
Rose is a dedicated wife and mother to her husband Grant and her son James. Having recently moved to a grand mansion in Florida, Rose is keen for James to fit in with his new life and hires a tutor.
Isabel is young, smart and beautiful, and not only gets along with James, but she gets results.
But when Isabel starts to get too close for comfort, Rose can’t help but think that Isabel is looking for more than just tutoring.
Can Rose uncover who exactly she has let into her house, or will this lesson be deadly?
“Twisting, propulsive, and unsettling, The Tutor is a haunting reminder that sometimes the greatest dangers come from the ones we call family. Courtney Psak has crafted a dark, crafty tale of deception and redemption you won’t soon forget.”
— Carter Wilson, USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of Tell Me What You Did
To purchase your copy of The Tutor, click the link here.
The Tutor Author Courtney Psak Interview
The Tutor centers around Rose, her son James, and the tutor she brings into her home, Isabel. What drew you to writing about a family in danger?
It’s not so much a family in danger, I was more focused on the relationship dynamics. When I was a communications major in college, I had to take an interpersonal communications class. It taught us the building and breakdown of relationships, whether it be friendship, romantic or even professional. Then when I became a project manager at a network, our boss had us take a course at NYU which was seven habits for highly effective managers. It taught us a great deal about how to work with different types of personalities in order to get the job done. In this case we were working with everyone from business heads to artists.
In The Tutor there are lot of relationship dynamics. You have Rose who is newly married to Grant and comes from no money. Then there’s Grant’s mother who they are forced to move in with because of her health, who makes it clear she hates Rose. Now Rose is very insecure in this environment which adds to the tension. But you realize that Grant’s mother Evelyn is not all that different from her, but she has her reasons for acting the way she is. Then you add Isabel, the tutor, who just lost her only living relative and with nothing to lose, decides to follow this family from New York to Palm Beach just to get to the truth, no matter what it does to everyone.
I’m drawn to writing about these relationships because it allows you to get inside the character’s head, revealing just enough that the reader is going to want more and just when they think they’re going to find out, we switch to another character with another secret. It’s the type of reading I enjoy, and I try to write what I like to read.
The Tutor is set in Palm Beach, Florida. What makes that a great place to set a psychological thriller?
Everyone seems to love wealth porn. Shows like Succession did well because people wanted to see the drama behind the closed doors of the highly privileged. In most cases, people watch because they want to see them fail, but what I try to highlight is that it doesn’t matter where you come from, money will not spare you from most basic human emotions whether that’s grief, psychological trauma, and so on.
Tell us about your road to publishing The Tutor:
It wasn’t as straight forward as one might think. I had written another book that got me my agent and while she was shopping it around, I wrote The Tutor. My first book, while it did eventually find a home and will come out this June, it didn’t get any bites the first go around. As I thought more about it, I actually didn’t like The Tutor. I thought it was a good start, but nowhere near ready. It needed an entire re-write. So, my agent and I agreed that maybe we wouldn’t submit that one and I went ahead and wrote another book. That one is coming out this January. But while I had been waiting on notes from my agent, she came back to me and said that editors really liked the idea of The Tutor. Despite liking the idea of it, I worried it wasn’t strong enough.
I compare it to when you study for a test. When it’s just for you, you’ll study but it may not be your best. But, if the teacher told you that they’d post your answers up in the classroom for all to see, well then you find yourself working a lot harder. So that is what I basically did. I told my agent to give me a month, as I didn’t want to wait too long to get back to the editors who were interested, and I rewrote the entire thing. Each time I thought it was getting predictable, I thought of how I could twist it a different way.
The editor that picked it up, loved it so much she wanted everything I had written, which was how I got a three-book deal.
The Tutor ends with a major twist. Without giving anything away, did you know the twist when you first started writing the novel? Or did that come as a surprise to you too?
So normally I would, because I’m a major outliner. With my second book, the twist was actually the main idea, and I had to build the story around it. But in this case, because I went back and rewrote it, I actually didn’t know at first. I just remember getting all the way to the end and thinking well that’s anti-climactic, how do I make this better? Then it came to me, and I was very excited because it really pulled the whole story together nicely.
You started out your writing life in magazines and journalism. How did your previous experience help you write your first crime novel?
I was a journalism major in college and got a masters in publishing, but to be honest it was more about how much I was reading. I was tearing through books, deconstructing the plots and analyzing characters. That’s what really taught me the most. I loved writing for magazines, and it likely helped me find my writing style, but what really helped more than anything was reading, taking writing classes and attending writers’ conferences.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on my sixth book. I wrote two more books this year, while editing two of my books for Hodder and Stoughton. The summer gets really crazy with my two kids home and I’ve been traveling a lot between Thrillerfest in New York and Harrogate in the UK. I’ve also been writing guest articles and doing interviews. After I get back from Bouchercon in September, I’m going to work on expanding on the idea I have and outlining.
Words of Wisdom for Aspiring Writers:
Always write the best book you can. Write something you’d want to read. Despite the fact that I’ve read The Tutor well over ten times now, I still find myself getting sucked in every time and that’s what you want your readers to be doing. If you are bored with it, so will your readers.
The Tutor Author Courtney Psak
Courtney Psak is a mystery thriller writer whose novel The Tutor will release August 7th, 2025, with Hodder and Stoughton, with whom she’s signed a three-book deal. The follow-up thrillers are expected for release in 2026.
Courtney graduated with a degree in Communications and Journalism from Monmouth University, followed with a master’s degree in Publishing from Pace University.
She started her career writing for magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Self and Modern Bride. In 2015 she wrote her first novel, Thirty Days to Thirty, and sold thousands of copies while working as a project manager for Viacom in New York.
Courtney currently lives in Palm Beach, Florida with her husband and two sons. She is a member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, the National Writers Association and the Mystery Writers of America.
To learn more about Courtney, click any of the following links: Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, Twitter & Website
Elena Hartwell/Elena Taylor
Header image from Pixabay
