Author and Longview native May Cobb’s latest book, “A Likeable Woman,” is set in Longview.

Longview native May Cobb, author of “Big Woods,” “The Hunting Wives” and “My Summer Darlings,” is looking forward to the July 11 release of her latest thriller.

“A Likeable Woman,” which is set in Longview, centers around Kira, a 30-something-year-old woman who left town years earlier in the wake of her mother Sadie’s mysterious death.

“She vowed never to return because she was told as a teenager her mother committed suicide, but she never believed it,” Cobb said. “But now her frenemy … is having a vow renewal party and she’s invited her back.”

Although Kira is reluctant to return home, she rethinks it after her grandmother starts sending her texts saying she has something that belonged to her mother and that Kira might have been right about her mother’s death not being a suicide.

“So, she goes back … and her grandmother gives her an unpublished memoir that her mother was working on before she died,” Cobb said. “Kira has this weekend to sort of read it and try to investigate and figure out whether her mom killed herself or was she murdered.”

As Kira gets closer to the truth, it becomes clear that someone wants the past to stay buried.

Cobb said, “Danger starts to lurk around Kira … she gets threatening text messages and some other things happen.”

Cobb’s inspiration for “A Likeable Woman” came from her own mother.

“My mother, who is from Longview, was a big inspiration for the mother character,” she said. “Sadie is based on my mom because my mom is also an artist but she was also a working mom and had to squeeze art into her life.”

Cobb began writing “A Likeable Woman” in the early summer of 2021 and finished it in February 2022.

“I just booked a date at Books & Barrels in Longview for Aug. 12. I live in Austin, so I’ll be coming home for a book signing,” she said. “I’ll have others in Austin, Houston, Dallas and Arizona but then I’ll come home later … to celebrate with everyone there.”

Cobb said “A Likeable Woman” also made the list of best summer reads in Oprah Daily, a publication by Oprah Winfrey.

“It is amazing,” Cobb said. “I was like, thank you Oprah.”

Cobb said although “A Likeable Woman” has its share of backstabbing and long-buried secrets, it’s really about art and the mother-daughter relationship – even across the boundaries of time.

“It’s a dual narrative, so you have Kira’s storyline and then when she gets her mother’s book, we get to hear from her mother,” she said. “So, it cuts back and forth between the mother’s voice and the daughter’s.”

For information on where to purchase “A Likeable Woman,” go online to http://bit.ly/3tBPxPy .

Cobb recently finished another book, which is going through the editing stages.

“It’s going to be my first one that’s not set in East Texas — it’s set in Hollywood,” she said. “But the one I’m about to start writing is going to be back in East Texas because I can’t get enough of it.”