CJ Leede is just as excited about her third novel, “Headlights,” as her fans.
“This is the third time, and I don’t feel less excited or less nervous for this moment,” the author said in an emotional video posted to her Instagram account, @ceejthemoment, on Thursday, May 21, as she unboxed “Headlights.” “It doesn’t get less cool. … I’m so lucky.”
The former Angeleno joined us for a recent video interview to answer all our questions about “Headlights,” to tell us where she draws inspiration from, why she loves Los Angeles, and talk about the horror genre in general. We also discuss the destruction of her home during the Palisades fire in 2025 and escaping the Eaton fire immediately after.
Leede will be making a stop at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena on June 16 during her upcoming “Headlights” tour. The ticketed event is extra special for the author since she’ll be there with her partner, Kyle Kouri, who will be publishing his own book, “The Problem Drinker,” on June 2. The two will be joined in discussion by authors Chuck Tingle and Liz Kerin, with a book signing to follow.
The latest from the 34-year-old joins her other novels, “Maeve Fly” and “American Rapture,” June 9, and continues to explore her love of Americana culture with her signature themes of strong female characters, coping with loss and grief, and a bit of romance along the way.
Editor’s Note: This converstation has been edited for length and clarity, and makes references to graphic material when discussing the plot of “Headlights.”
“Headlights” by C.J. Leede comes out June 9.
Q: Can you tell me a little about “Headlights”?
People are waking up on the side of the highway in Colorado with no memory of how they got there, many miles from where they last remember being. They’re naked except for the skin of someone they’ve allegedly never met hanging over their shoulders, and there’s a human hair tied around their tongues. The very tortured special agent, who was assigned to the case for a long time, now has to come back to Colorado, a place he never wanted to return to, and finally solve it. As clues start to point back toward his own life, he’s got to face his past, himself, and his ghosts, and try to stop this thing before anyone else dies.
Q: Where did the title come from?
It originally was called “All the Headlights Shining,” which was, really, an even more explicit nod to (Stephen King’s) “The Shining,” which is very explicitly nodded to throughout the book. “Headlights” just felt right. We can only see so much in front of us at any given time with all these big questions around us. So, that feels like headlights in the dark to me.
Q: What made you decide to go with a male protagonist this time?
I did try to give a dual POV between this main character and a female character in the book, mostly because I know that my readers, who I love, have really come to expect a female lead from me. But I couldn’t make it work, and this really felt like Daniel’s story.
Horror is this huge umbrella, and within that umbrella, I want to play, I want to do everything. I really wanted to create a base so that moving forward, I can do a little bit of everything and not pigeonhole myself early on. But it’s a risk. It’s a little scary.
I’m always going to write strong female characters because I have strong women in my life who I really admire.
Q: What kind of research went into writing about an FBI agent and war veteran?
I had six authenticity readers for this book. I was really lucky to have folks who were willing to sit down with me after reading it and give me their thoughts.
I really wanted to do justice by this veteran character. I think we ask young people to go overseas and experience things that a lot of us can’t fathom, and then expect them to come back and reintegrate into everyday life. It’s an unrealistic expectation in my opinion, and we should give them more resources.
I also read so many books about both (FBI agents and veterans). I read so many memoirs. I read so many autobiographies and biographies. I talked to so many people. It was really fun. I learned a lot. And I had a former forensic expert weigh in, too.
Q: What’s the inspiration behind the plot?
I thought the scariest thing that could happen is sort of waking up and realizing you’ve done something horrible, that you don’t remember doing, and that you would never do. And I think these killers, if we believe them, which readers will see in the book, these people are waking up and saying they can’t understand how they did this horrible thing, and now they have to live with it. It’s like my worst fear!
C.J. Leede, author of “Headlights.” (Photo by Ryan Pfluger)
Q: Your books are heavily influenced by music. Do you already have a soundtrack in your head, or do they come to you through the characters?
I come up with the playlist really early on, like in the first few days of thinking about a book, usually. Music was always a really big part of my life growing up. I think I always think in terms of songs, and when creating these worlds, they feel like such an extension of the place and the characters, and then vice versa.
Check out the playlists Leede’s has created for each of her novels here.
Q: Do you know ahead of time what locations you want to write about?
Yes. America has a lot of issues, and I don’t think anybody on any side of things would disagree with me saying that. But there’s also a lot to celebrate here — there is a lot that is uniquely ours, and that is positive. (While living on the road,) I’ve experienced America through highways, back roads, dive bars, and motels, and I love it. I want to paint a portrait of all these individual places and their isms, and even the way topography sort of informs culture and vice versa. I’m fascinated by these microcosmic American cultures and ecosystems within this broad American ecosystem. I want to write a patchwork of this. I want to go state-by-state. We’ll see if I can get 50 books out!
Q: I saw that you stayed at The Stanley Hotel. Did that come before or after you decided to include it in “Headlights”?
After. Sometimes it’s somewhere I’ve been, and I’m like, “Oh, I’m going to set a scene there.” Like House on the Rock in my second book. But typically, how it happens is I think, “Oh, that’s somewhere I want to go!” And I research it a lot, spend a lot of time on Reddit, and then I write the scenes. Then I go to the place and see what I got wrong and see what I can make better. Usually, that’s where I have all the best ideas.
Q: We can’t talk about the Stanley or even “Headlights” without talking about Stephen King. “The Shining” is mentioned throughout the novel. What made you draw inspiration from that particular King novel?
I’ve always been fascinated by this idea of Danny’s shine and people who can see beyond. This book was really me grappling with death and grief and asking myself, “where do people go after,” “does any part of them linger here,” and “can we find it?” “The Shining” is a book about ghosts. That’s the big question of this book: Where did they go?
Q: Are there any other authors or novels that have influenced your work?
Hundreds. For this book in particular, outside of “The Shining,” “Silence of the Lambs.” I read a million Colorado books. I watched “True Detective” season one for the first time, and that was a lot of fun. And “Longlegs” had just come out towards the end. And that was the vibe. Also, Steven Graham Jones books, and he’s a Colorado author, too.
Q: What drew you to horror?
I think horror is thriving. I didn’t really set out intending to write horror. I just started writing, and people told me what I was writing was horror. At the time, I had never really read any because I thought it meant a very specific thing, which I wasn’t into, I thought.
People don’t realize what a broad term horror is, and what a home it is for every kind of story. In my mind, I define horror as stories that interact with grief, death, and fear, which are things that we live with and are things that are huge in our lives as humans.
Horror is having a moment. It’s interesting because in all the other genres — romance, thrillers, sci-fi, fantasy — we consider those perennial. With horror, everybody’s always asking, “Is this going to end? Is this going to go away?” I think people are realizing it can sit on the shelves with every other genre, and there’s nothing to fear in having these books out about fear. Fear is such a human experience, and there’s so much light to be found in the darkness.
Sign up for our free newsletter about books, authors, reading and more
Q: You lost your home during the Palisades fire in early 2025. Can you describe your experience?
We had spent one night there. The house was two structures. One of them burned down, and the other sustained damage. The remaining building was pretty much one of the only things (left) on the street. We hadn’t moved in fully. The part that burned down was the only part we had things in. It wasn’t many things; sentimental items, inherited things.
When we evacuated, we got our dogs … and we went to Pasadena, near the Altadena border. And then the Eaton fire broke out, and we made the call to leave because the windows were shaking, and the power was going out. It was one of the scariest drives of my life. We really kind of thought we weren’t going to make it out.
I’m so sorry to everyone affected by those fires. Just so sorry to everyone. I don’t know why one of our structures stayed, and families who had been there for forever that theirs didn’t. I wish it hadn’t been that way. Everyone felt it. We’re a community in Southern California,
Q: Do you think that will impact your novels going forward?
Probably. There’s a big fire at one point in my second book (“American Rapture”). I remember when we were driving, trying to get to the 10 (Freeway) — the mountain is on fire behind us, there were sparks flying, and the winds were pushing up against the car. I remember thinking, I could have written about it better. I could have done a better job. It was crazy. I’m just so sorry for everyone. And I hope it doesn’t happen again.
Q: In “Maeve Fly,” you mention a certain theme park. What ultimately made you decide to include that?
The theme park that doesn’t exist outside of L.A.? With “Maeve,” the book is about anticipatory grief and holding on tightly when you know change is coming because change is inevitable in this life. And Los Angeles is a city … that was built to reflect the park in some ways, and the park was built to reflect the city.
Both of them are sort of about holding on to eternal youth or trying to, or saying, “Hey, look, we can put palm trees where they didn’t naturally grow. We can manicure this land to be whatever we want it to be. We are more powerful than change and time and decay.”
And I love that about L.A. I don’t say it as a criticism. I think the fantasy that L.A. gives us from living there is actually a beautiful and valuable thing. That was so much of what the main character’s struggle was about. So, it made sense to me as an extension of what she’s going through.
Q: Can you tell fans a little about what to expect from the upcoming Vroman’s event?
It’s going to be really fun! Vroman’s is doing custom drinks for the event. It’s celebrating “Headlights,” but also my boyfriend’s book, which is a memoir called “The Problem Drinker.”
So, it’s going to be a joint book event for the two of us. Interestingly, we wrote these two books as each of us was dealing with the same time period in our lives, where we had a lot of loss that we were facing. I think they’re really good companion pieces, even though one’s a horror novel where I was dealing with it by writing about ghosts, and he just wrote about it. So, that’s a cool thing about the two.
We have Chuck Tingle and Liz Kerin doing the event with us, moderating. Typically, when all of us are together, it’s good times. There will probably be some kind of game or trivia aspect, prizes, and giveaways. We have custom merch (designed by L.A.-artist Dylan Garrett Smith). And probably some more fun surprises. Who knows? We love Vroman’s. We’re so excited to get to do it there.
Buy tickets here to the event at 695 East Colorado Blvd., Pasadena.
Q: What’s something about your novel “Headlights” that you don’t think anybody knows or that you wish people knew about?
“Headlights” feels like it’s for my family. I have family in Colorado. There are so many little nods to specific people in my life and specific moments in my life. In many ways, it’s a very personal book.
(For instance) When I was born, a family member called my mom and said, “Have you named her yet?” We’re from Texas, so wild names are not uncommon. My mom said, “Yeah, we named her a while ago.” And the person said, “Spell that.” So it stuck, this idea, everybody calls me Whileago in the family. And I put that in as the name of a house (in the book).
Q: If you could ask your readers something, what would you ask?
In the best, most loving way — I’m saying this to the readers who love my books, and I’m saying it as a reflection of something in myself — I would say: I love whatever is wrong with you.
