M. L. Rio

If We Were Villains puts seven Shakespeare students at a small conservatory, casts them repeatedly in the same kinds of role, and lets the typecasting bleed into who they become when one of them dies.

Rio trained as an actor and holds a Shakespeare degree, so the rehearsal detail is exact and the quotations are doing plot work rather than decorating it.

It gets compared to The Secret History constantly, which she has been gracious about. The Shakespeare is the difference: these characters can only say the true thing in someone else's words.