Kate Flora on Researching the Teacher at the Center of *Teach Her a Lesson*

For Kate Flora, the most useful research for Teach Her a Lesson began with a question: what happens when a teacher is innocent, but a student’s account makes her look guilty? The novel follows Alexis Jordan, a dedicated high school English teacher whose life is thrown into turmoil after a student accuses her of an affair. Flora’s experience as a former lawyer helped her shape the story, but writing Alexis’s predicament meant learning about a field she hadn’t practiced: employment law.

Turning a news story around

Flora’s route from law to fiction has given her a working familiarity with legal systems and the pressures that shape an investigation. At her 50^th law school reunion, she described her career to former classmates with a joke: she had practiced law, then turned to “a life of crime”—as a crime writer. Her legal background had already helped with her first true crime book, Finding Amy, when she sought information and advice from former colleagues in Maine.

The starting point for Teach Her a Lesson came from a newspaper story about a teacher accused of having sex with a student. Flora wondered what might happen if the expected roles were reversed: what if the student were the one driving events, while the teacher was innocent and no one believed her?

That idea became the story of Alexis Jordan and Evan Palmer. Alexis is a young teacher committed to her work. Evan is a popular athlete, the kind of student people assume can do no wrong. After Alexis rejects his advance, he tells a version of events that makes their supposed affair sound disturbingly plausible. He also appears to know intimate details about her life—right down to the color of her sheets. The mismatch between Alexis’s reality and Evan’s persuasive account gives the novel its central unease.

Finding the right advice for Alexis

When school administrators treat Alexis as guilty and give her little reason to expect a fair hearing, she sees that she needs legal help. Flora knew her own experience wasn’t enough to write the details convincingly. She hadn’t practiced employment law and needed to understand what Alexis could do to protect herself when her job was in danger.

She turned to law school classmate Elizabeth Rodgers. Rodgers was amused by the request to advise a fictional client, but took the questions seriously. A lunch meeting and follow-up emails helped Flora work out what Alexis might do to safeguard her position. That exchange also helped create Janice Trustman, the lawyer who becomes Alexis’s guide through the accusations and the school’s inquiry.

Trustman’s first conversation with Alexis establishes the emotional and practical stakes. She explains that the matter is still informal: the school is investigating, while Alexis is trying to rely on the protections in her contract. Trustman points out that, in the earlier meeting, administrators caught Alexis off guard and asked her to acknowledge wrongdoing without clearly telling her what she was accused of. When Alexis asked for a hearing with a union representative present, they did nothing.

In the scene, Trustman reads that silence as a way to leave Alexis anxious and unsettled, increasing the chance that she will lose her composure or say something that can be used against her. Her advice is blunt: Alexis needs to stay steady, keep control of what she says and prepare for the possibility that others won’t play fair. The exchange leaves Alexis feeling flattened rather than reassured, but it gives her a plan—and a person on her side.

Flora says she came to like Trustman as she wrote her. The lawyer is tough with Alexis, but that toughness has a purpose: she wants her client to understand the situation clearly enough to protect herself. For Flora, Rodgers’s advice did more than supply procedural detail. It gave the novel a character who could explain the risks while adding tension and support to Alexis’s story.

Research beyond the page

Flora also spent time in high school classrooms and spoke with teachers to get closer to Alexis’s professional world. That research complemented the legal conversations: the novel needed to make sense both as a story about a teacher’s work and as an account of what happens when her reputation and livelihood are threatened.

One part of Flora’s research was more personal. To convey Alexis’s fear during an arrest, she says, she got arrested herself. She leaves the details for another time, but the experience points to her willingness to test what she writes about firsthand.

Teach Her a Lesson opens with a question for readers: what would you do if you knew you were innocent, but the evidence against you seemed compelling? Alexis has taught English for six years and is already dealing with burnout and suspicion that her husband is having an affair. Then, while coaching a student for the school play, she turns down his advance. She doesn’t know he has become obsessed with her or how long he has been working toward this moment. After she rejects him, his version of their “affair” threatens her marriage, career and sense of safety.

What do you do when you’re accused of an unspeakable crime and know you’re innocent, but the evidence against you is so compelling?

Flora’s own curiosity about why people cross moral and legal lines began during her work in Maine, where she encountered cases involving family responsibilities, child abuse and discriminatory employers. She has written twenty-eight books across crime fiction, thrillers, true crime, memoir and nonfiction. Her award recognition includes finalist places for the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, Silver Falchion and Derringer awards. She has twice won the Maine Literary Award for crime fiction, received the Public Safety Writers Association award for nonfiction, and earned lifetime achievement honors from the New England Crime Bake and the Maine Crime Wave.

Teach Her a Lesson is available through Encircle Publications. More about Kate Flora is at her website; she also blogs with the Maine Crime Writers. The novel’s premise turns on a frightening imbalance: a convincing accusation can put a person’s work and relationships at risk before the truth has a chance to catch up.