As I watched families pick through the rubble of their homes, looking for shoes for their kids, I felt sickened and helpless. I tried to imagine what it would feel to have lost everything and not have enough money to rent a motel room for the week. So I decided to do what I could. Together with my blog partners at Crime Fiction Collective, we’re raising money to help a family in Joplin. Read more →
We’ve all thought about killing someone…at least for a second or two, and crime fiction novelists like myself get to act that out in novels. Now it’s your turn. I’m giving away the opportunity to name the murder victim in the futuristic thriller I’m writing. (You expected someone to die, didn’t you?)
Watching your digital book sales climb is exhilarating. Seeing them fall is heartbreaking and confusing. “What changed?” you ask yourself, feeling panicked. Did I slack off too much on blogging? Or forget to post in the forums? Did I take this success for granted for 24 hours? Frantically, you try to recreate the right combination of effort and luck that made it happen. 
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If you’ve wanted to try my series, here’s a great opportunity. SECRETS TO DIE FOR is only $.99 on Kindle for this week only. The story has a 4.5-start rating on Amazon with 19 reviews and has been highly praised by Mystery Scene and Crimespree magazines. This is the first book I wrote that was labeled “A Detective Jackson Mystery,” so it’s a great place to start. I hope you’ll check it out. Amazon link
I have given birth only once, and it was not my idea at the time. I’d decided in my late teens that I would never have children, thinking I was too selfish. Yet, the moment my son was born, I fell hopelessly in love with him. I didn’t let him out of my sight, literally, for a year. I never knew I could love someone that much. Until then, I thought I was flawed, unable to feel the deep love that others experienced. Read more →
In this week’s news, the last company in the world manufacturing typewriters shut down its production plant. Then Time magazine listed four writers in its Top 100 people list, up from zero last year. Are these events connected? I believe so. The ability to write and distribute information electronically changed the world a few decades ago, but the recent rise of e-readers and the ability to access novels and information instantly, no matter where you are, has taken writers to a new level. Read more →
Crime fiction lovers: I’d like to introduce mystery author Jenny Hilborne, British import and author of Madness and Murder. Her new novel, No Alibi, is set in San Fransico, and the story sounds terrific. Here’s the back cover copy:
Isabelle Kingsley didn’t think her husband would ever cheat. Her husband didn’t think she would ever find out. Read more →
Readers are most familiar with my Detective Jackson books, but I also have two standalone thrillers that I wrote before I started the series. I worked for a pharmaceutical magazine for years, so the books have subtle medical themes. I rewrote them last year to update the stories and give Jackson a small cameo in each.
The seed of an idea that would become The Baby Thief sprouted one Read more →
Left Coast Crime in Santa Fe was great this year. I got to meet in person people I’ve come to know and like online: Peg Brantley, Jodie Renner, Marlyn Beebe, and more. I participated in two panels, Research: Getting It Right, and Publishing: Today and in the Future.
Both were well attended, and I got terrific feedback from the audience. Read more →
Every time you read a novel, you get a peek into the writer’s soul. Some authors are good at separating themselves from the story, especially if they write about a character unlike themselves (Jack Reacher, for example, who is not like Lee Child). Yet I believe that circumstances in each writer’s life affect what they write in at least small ways.
For example, if I have a headache when I’m writing, one of my characters Read more →
