With her second novel, Elkhart native finds her ‘Lost Heiress’

It’s 6:30 a.m. Pacific time, but Elizabeth Klehfoth answers the phone like it’s a midday treat.  

And it might well be. Authors have that notoriously creative habit of keeping to their schedules. 

Klehfoth, an Elkhart native, won praise for her first novel, 2018 page turner “All These Beautiful Strangers.” She kicks off the conversation by saying she’s recently wrapped up a first draft of her third novel.  

But it’s her long-awaited second book, “The Lost Heiress,” which arrives Dec. 1, that’s the reason for this check in. 

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“’The Lost Heiress’ is a psychological suspense novel, so it lives in the same genre as the first book,” the author says. “The central mystery isn’t based on a real event, but the setting is very much so. A lot of history about the family home in the book is modeled after the Hearst Castle. The family resembles the Kennedys – a tragic family and a political dynasty.” 

Klehfoth’s excitement for the work cloaks some of the time and pain it took to get it released.  

She says the first book was actually “very easy to write – there was less pressure not knowing if anybody was ever going to read it.” But “Beautiful Strangers” resonated with early lookers and the Hollywood rights were snapped before it was even published.  

The drafted screenplay is great, Klehfoth says, and it’s possible it still will arrive on screens in the future. 

With book two, she says her story needed to be chiseled like hard stone. Revision after revision, characters and points of view were reworked.  

“It was a painstakingly slow process, but I feel like I grew a lot. It refined and improved my writing process,” she says. At one point, “I felt like I needed to put it away for a while and come back with fresh eyes. I went down the wrong path – not the path (the story) needed to be told from.” 

The time to write has always been a juggle. During “Beautiful Strangers,” she worked a 9-to-5. “Lost Heiress” arrived as she married and ended before she gave birth to their daughter, who’s now 2.  

“Getting writing time in was like, an hour before work, a couple hours on weekends. Not in the evenings anymore,” Klehfoth says. “But in some ways, that was a gift. You have to be more thoughtful and economical with the time you have.” 

Klehfoth will be visiting Elkhart and reading selections of “The Lost Heiress” at Elkhart Public Library’s downtown location. The free event will take place at 7 p.m. Monday, Dec. 22, and her books will be available for purchase.