Alyssa Cole

In Alyssa Cole's newest thriller, One of Us Knows, the lead character Kenetria Nash is the host of what's known as a "system," a group of personalities that inhabit the same body.

- Jera Brown

But this is no fantasy novel. This unique situation occurs when an individual has dissociative identity disorder (DID), formerly known as multiple personality disorder.

From The Perfect Daughter by D. J. Palmer to the TV show "The Crowded Room," popular media continues to use DID for its tantalizing plot twists and the unique opportunity it presents to explore the expansive possibilities of identity.

One of Alyssa Cole's primary goals was not to add to the harmful narratives surrounding DID, a mental illness that impacts an estimated 1 percent of the population according to the National Institutes of Health. And in this interview, Cole discusses her efforts to represent the disorder responsibly.

Cole is a New York Times bestselling author who first made a name for herself in contemporary romance. Her debut thriller, When No One Is Watching, won the 2021 Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best Paperback Original and the Strand Critics Award for Best Debut.

WD spoke to Cole about One of Us Knows, which was published by William Morrow in April.

Since the main character has DID, you wrote several characters at once who are both autonomous and deeply connected. What was the most challenging aspect of this?