Marybeth Mayhew Whalen‘s brand-new thriller novel features a tense hostage negotiation, a small-town domestic dispute and personal tales from three women searching for their place in the world — and it all started with her real-life visit to the post office.

The Every Moment Since author’s new book, Handle With Care, takes place on an “ordinary spring afternoon in a small-town post office” as a group of women prepare to mail some packages that will change their lives. Things quickly go awry when a domestic dispute spirals out of control and a man pulls a gun, barricading himself inside with four hostages as a negotiator outside tries to save the people inside.

According to Mayhew Whalen, who spoke exclusively with PEOPLE about Handle With Care, the idea for the story came to her “out of the blue, during an ordinary errand day.”

“I stopped at the post office to mail a package, and the postal worker asked the question they always ask: ‘Does the package contain anything liquid, fragile, perishable or potentially hazardous?'” Mayhew Whalen says. “For whatever reason, on that day it struck me as a particularly poignant question. I thought I had the kernel of a novel, but then quickly talked myself out of it, because what would I write about a post office?”

“Three days later the idea returned, but this time with the crux of the novel. The story would be a hostage situation that happens inside the post office. I figured out that three women would be taken hostage, along with the postal worker, as a result of a domestic situation that escalates,” the author adds.

“Those three women are all there to mail packages that, if mailed, could change their lives forever. As they spend time trapped together Sylvie, Morrow, Blythe and Nadine do what women are prone to do: they share their stories. I like to say it’s like Steel Magnolias… in a hostage situation.”

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To flesh out her idea into something bigger, Mayhew Whalen says that she delved deep into research about hostage negotiation — and she started her research the way we all do, by Googling it.

“The second hit that came up was a link to a hostage negotiation conference. My husband was in the room at the time, and I said to him, ‘Hey, there’s actually a hostage negotiation conference. I bet I could go to that and learn all I need!’ My husband said, ‘Marybeth, that’s for law enforcement. They won’t let you go to something like that.’ I said, ‘Well the guy in charge’s email is right here. Won’t hurt to just ask. Worst he can do is say no.'”

“Three weeks later, I went to that conference and then returned the next year,” she says. “This book would not be the book it is without the help and support of the people I met there. And also, I now have 36 credit hours in hostage negotiation training.”

Although Mayhew Whalen’s novel is thoroughly researched and tells the story of a thrilling crime, she believes readers will take away a deeper message from Handle With Care.

“Despite being centered around a hostage situation, this story is really about finding hope in the midst of hard times and the power of connecting with and relying on others,” she says. “I hope it makes readers smile, reflect on their own relationships and maybe think differently about the strangers in the queue the next time they’re at the post office.”

Read below for an exclusive excerpt from Handle With Care.

Tommy casts a glance at those papers, thinking that if he had laser eyes like the superheroes he watched as a kid he’d incinerate them right there in the seat. It’d catch the seat on fire, but he wouldn’t care. Those papers would be gone and there would still be hope for him and Nadine.

But he doesn’t have laser eyes and Nadine is in there with customers and — she had a point — it isn’t right to show up at her work. Not that she didn’t send someone to his work today, he thinks. Then he hears his dad in his head saying, “Two wrongs don’t make a right, son.”

At the thought of his dad, he leans over and hits the button to open the glove compartment. Inside he sees the handle of bourbon he’s been swigging from since he left work. The GM — not just his boss, but the damn GM of the whole dealership — had come and found him under a car to tell him, with this pitying look that made Tommy feel worse, not better, that he could go home for the day. Then the pompous ass had flashed this smile — like there was something to smile about — and added, “With pay.”

Well, whoop-de-do, Tommy had thought. But he’d left all the same.

Now Tommy takes a long pull from the handle of bourbon, enjoying the burn and the warmth that comes with it. He thinks of the first time he ever tasted bourbon. He’d been hunting with his dad. He’d been a kid — no older than 14 or 15 — but it had been cold and his dad had offered him a sip. “It’ll cure what ails ya,” he’d promised. Tommy wonders if he ever told his dad that he was right. It does cure what ails ya.

His thoughts are coming hard and fast: the old man, the GM, his father, all making him think about the man he’s failed to be. He stares at the post office as he takes another sip. He doesn’t think anyone has come or gone since he left, so it’s still the same ladies in line in there. How many of them were there? Two? Four? He doesn’t remember. He was too intent on getting Nadine to tear up those papers. If she will just tear up those papers it will mean . . . what? He doesn’t know. He just wanted to do something, to change something. That’s what a real man would do.

Tommy caps the bottle and goes to stick it back into the glove compartment, but spies his gun sitting in there before he can. He stares at it for a moment before looking back at the post office. He just needs to make her understand. Not that he would ever use the gun, mind you. Just having it on him will up the ante. That’s all he intends. A serious device to show how serious he is. He reaches for the gun and angles his body so he can get it into his pocket. Then he picks up the envelope with one hand and rests the bourbon in his lap so he can use his free hand to open the door.

Handle with Care. Copyright © 2025 by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen. All rights reserved. 

Handle With Care will be published on April 14, 2026 and is now available for preorder, wherever books are sold.