Author interview, conducted by email. A.J. Wooding's answers are his own, lightly edited for clarity. AudiobookSoul has not listened to If They Knew - this is a conversation, not a review.
By his own account, A.J. Wooding has always had a curious mind. On cruise ships, his recurring "can you imagine if..." thoughts helped inspire If They Knew.
In this debut thriller, Theo Parrish inherits Parrish Cruise Lines when his father dies and boards the company's first vessel for what should be a simple training voyage. Then a storm hits. Communications fail, the power falters, and the ship is left dead in the water while days stretch into weeks, and weeks into months. The prologue tells you one thing up front: only one person survives. It does not tell you who.
The audiobook arrives November 3, 2026 from Simon Maverick, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, with Craig Andrew, Maxwell Glick, and Jennifer Pickens sharing the microphone. We asked Wooding where the story came from - and how three narrators share the story without giving the ending away.
Where did If They Knew begin?
If They Knew was inspired by both my real-life experiences and other works I have enjoyed in recent years. My family and I love to cruise and have traveled on many different cruise lines. I have always had a curious mind, and whenever I was on a cruise ship I had so many "can you imagine if..." thoughts - many of which have now made their way onto the pages of If They Knew.
I was also really inspired by FantasticLand by Mike Bockoven, the TV show Yellowjackets, and even took some inspiration from the real-life events in the Netflix documentary Trainwreck: Poop Cruise.
Why a cruise ship? Did anything from your own sailings make it onto the page?
As I mentioned, my family and I really enjoy cruising! I have probably sailed on over 20 cruises across multiple cruise lines, and I thought: what if something that was supposed to be the ultimate relaxation time for people turned into the worst possible scenarios they had ever found themselves in?
The ideas for the layouts and extravagant features come from different parts of some of my favorite ships, including the Behind the Scenes tours some cruise lines offer - though I have thankfully never had a sailing quite like the one these guests experience aboard Parrish Cruise Lines. Deep diving into some of the research was an exciting part of the writing process for me, because while the unthinkable happens aboard the vessel, I wanted the reader to feel like the ship was as real as possible.
Theo inherits the company and boards hoping to prove himself. Why put him at the helm when everything goes wrong?
Theo spent much of his life trying to prove himself to his father, and that didn't stop when he inherited the company. He boards the ship hoping to dazzle everyone onboard with the culmination of his and his father's hard work, but instead he's left cleaning up a mess he didn't make.
It felt important to have Theo at the helm through the disaster - to give him the opportunity to prove himself, but also to have people look up to him the way he always looked up to his father.
The passengers are stranded for months. What was the hardest part of making that ordeal feel believable?
This is a difficult question, because honestly, throughout my writing process I never really thought "does this feel real?" I was completely making it up for the thriller twists and turns as I pieced together the storyline. I wanted the ship to be something the reader could imagine, so I built Parrish Cruise Lines out of all my favorite parts of ships I have experienced.
From there, I put myself in the shoes of each character, tried to imagine how they would handle everything happening to them, and tried to convey it so the reader would feel like they were in that character's shoes too. So I guess I just sort of wrote how all the "what would happen if..." scenarios played out in my mind if they were to happen in real life, without giving too much thought to believability - because while this could potentially all happen aboard a cruise, I'm really hoping it's not one I am ever setting sail on.
Three narrators, one secret. How is the story shared among the voices?
In the prologue, you learn that only one person survives the ship, and you don't find out who that person is until the very end of the book. So when choosing narrators, it was extremely important to me to set the survivor at the beginning apart from the other characters voiced in the story, so that narrator wouldn't spoil the ending.
Maxwell Glick narrates the prologue, giving the listener the survivor's experience. Throughout the story, the chapters are told from different characters' points of view, and those characters are brought to life by Craig Andrew and Jennifer Pickens. Between them they voice a multitude of characters - Craig helps bring the Parrish twins to life, along with some of the villains, and Jennifer voices some of the strong female leads.
One of them is lucky enough to voice the survivor, but you'll have to listen to the end to find out who!
Find If They Knew
Prefer print? The novel is already out in paperback and ebook from W. House Publishing.
About A.J. Wooding
A.J. Wooding is a thriller author born in Plant City, Florida. By his own count he has probably sailed on more than 20 cruises across multiple cruise lines - which may be the best, or the worst, possible research for a book like this. If They Knew is his debut novel.
