Inside Jessica Knoll's Boldest Book Yet

Content warning: This story contains references to sexual coercion, sexual assault, and violence.

Reading the kidnapping-turned-romance scenes in Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses, Jessica Knoll had one burning question: “Why is this so hot?”

Yet when the best-selling author went looking for the same kind of kicks in a thriller, she came up short.

“I was searching for good erotic thrillers, and I couldn’t really find any that were scratching the itch the way I needed it scratched,” she tells Bustle. “And I was like, ‘I’m going to write my own with this one.’”

Helpless, out July 7, follows Faye Heron, a successful actress and screenwriter who returns to her college for her mentor’s funeral 12 years after ending things with her first love, Henry Spalding. She never found that kind of passion again, not even in her marriage. But when she wakes up as a bleary-eyed captive in Henry’s cabin, she’s shaken by new dangers and haunting old desires.

Throughout her week of captivity, Faye is “helpless” to her own sexual desires, giving in to Henry in ways that she sees as just as degrading and humiliating as they are intimate.

Though mega-viral dark romances with power plays like ACOTAR have brought these fantasies to the forefront in recent years, Knoll acknowledges that these “taboo” desires are nothing new. Bodice rippers have been on her radar since she was a teen, when grocery store aisles were bursting with shirtless Fabios.

“There’s always been a healthy portion of the female population that gravitates towards these stories,” she says. “It’s taken on different forms, different names, but that core feature of coercive sexual pleasure has remained the same.”

Below, Knoll opens up about writing sex scenes, her former career at Cosmo, and Samantha Jones.

This book feels like a bit of a departure from your last few novels, including Luckiest Girl Alive and Bright Young Women, which are dark in a different way (with themes of sexual assault and other forms of violence). How did you decide that this was the story you wanted to tell?

There’s something in me that can’t do something formulaic, although sometimes I wish I could. Some people are excellent at writing things that seem formulaic on the surface but still contain surprises, twists, and a kind of a freshness. But I really have to try something new, because otherwise I don’t really know where to go with the story that isn’t completely obvious. So this one is much more sexually graphic than anything I’ve ever written.

Why do you think these kinds of stories are so popular right now?

I don’t know that I have an answer to that, but it does pose the question, why is this what we want right now?

There are lots of theories as to why coercive sexual pleasure is popular. One is that for people who have trauma, reading about it in a way where it is something you want might be a way of mastering it.

I also think personally that in a weird way, fantasizing about control being taken away from you is paradoxically you exercising total control. You’re in control of the fantasy, so it’s really a safe space to kind of play.

How did you come up with the title?

For me, it was always tongue-in-cheek. I even floated the idea of putting “helpless” in quotes, but then Emerald Fennell did it with “Wuthering Heights.” It’s a nod and a wink. Is she really helpless? I like the idea of things being up for interpretation. That’s what makes a great novel that sticks with you and makes you want to talk about it and argue and whatever.

This book is dark! Did you find it difficult to have to put yourself in that headspace to write?

No. I start to feel a little self-conscious about that fact when I get asked questions like that, and I get it all the time. I especially got it with my last book, Bright Young Women. “Does it affect your mood?” “Does it take you to a dark place to have to explore these dark places?” And the answer is just, honestly, no. I’ve had darker experiences, and I’m comfortable with that. So it’s like well-trod terrain when I’m thinking and writing about these things.

The reality check is always when I meet someone who’s like, “Whoa, that was dark.” And I feel a little bit of shame because I’m like, “I don’t think it’s that dark.”

In your viral Vogue essay about adapting Luckiest Girl Alive for the screen, you describe pouring pieces of your own life into that book. What pieces of you are in this one?

Even though I wouldn’t consider myself someone in Hollywood, I brushed up against it enough to gain a different perspective on it, especially the way women are treated and what it’s like when there is a backlash against a female celebrity versus a male celebrity. I found that to be really fertile ground to explore because it just feels like a super heightened version of being a woman generally, where it just feels like there’s more eyes and more judgment on you.

I was also tired and annoyed of seeing the 50 Shades of Grey depiction of a kinky or sexual relationship where the woman is very pure and virtuous and she’s being tempted by the bad guy and she has to be coerced into trying some of these things.

On Sex and the City, Samantha Jones is the epitome of the man-eater and the woman who loves sex, but it’s played for laughs. So, I wanted to write a serious depiction of a woman who has a certain sexual appetite that cannot be met by some men.

You used to write sex tips for Cosmo. What’s it like to write about sex in fiction?

It’s funny because when I worked at Cosmo — which it feels so long ago [2008–2013] — I was in charge of this section in the back called the “Red Hot Read,” which had excerpts from erotica books. We had this whole Excel sheet to keep track of the different setups and themes so that we weren’t repeating ourselves. We were like, “Last month we had a sexy fireman, so no men in uniform this month.” I was definitely reading some stuff at the office, and it was kind of a weird experience because you’d be like, I’m getting turned on at work.

I think writing sex is really hard and much harder in fiction. At Cosmo, it was OK if it was a little clinical, but to write sex in fiction, you want it to be a sexy experience. How do you do that without reducing it to stage directions? His hand goes there and her mouth goes there. So that was definitely a muscle that, despite my previous experience at Cosmopolitan, I’d really never flexed before. I don’t think I’ll do it again.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.