Rachael Hope asked Ashley Winstead:

I just finished 'The Last Housewife,' and it was absolutely incredible. The way it seemed like a thriller, but the themes around womanhood in America built was beautiful and twisted. I want to ask where you got your inspiration to talk about womanhood in this way, but also probably a lot of it came from just living as one. Were there specific events that sparked the story?

Ashley Winstead Thank you, Rachael. This truly means so much to me. The inspiration for TLH was kind of an alchemical mix of current events and themes that had long been on my mind. I became fascinated by reporting on the Sarah Lawrence sex cult (otherwise known as the Larry Ray story) and the NXIVM cult. To my mind, there was something unique about these groups that operated right in the midst of society, rather than out in rural middle of nowhere like a lot of cults, and that used enlightenment and empowerment language as part of their "manifestos," so to speak. I was really curious about how, as a modern woman, particularly one with social and economic power, you fell under the sway of these kinds of cults. And then the personal aspect of the story, as you guessed, came from a lifetime of being a girl, then a young woman, then an adult woman in the world. Experiences with men leering, sexualizing girls so young, experimenting with my own sexual power as I aged, wondering about the power and limits of beauty, experiencing sexual harassment and assault (apologies if this is jarring). Generally, as a heterosexual woman, I was grappling with the conundrum of being attracted to the group of people most likely to harm me (men). So all of that came together to inspire the book!

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