Early in my writing career, I was asked to write a short story in an anthology with debut thriller writers, edited by Lee Child. Of course I said yes! But writing short isn’t easy … especially for someone like me who finds it hard to keep my novellas under 25,000 words and my books under 100,000 words. (DEAD HEAT, the book I just revised and turned in, clocked in at 107,000 words.) But I did it, because I love a challenge. “Killing Justice” was originally published in Killer Year in 2008, and again in a 3-story anthology by the same… Read More

My husband has a theory. If you put a picture of the cat on anything, you increase traffic. Want more people to “like” your page? Post a cat. If you want a million views on YouTube? Record your cat. The above cat is Nemo, enjoying last Tuesday morning’s wind and sun on our back porch. Technically, Nemo is my daughter’s cat, but he’s really mine, because even when she moves out of the house, he’s staying with me. I have a thing for orange and white cats. Nemo is very popular on my Facebook page. I post a picture of… Read More

I recently read KILLING FLOOR by Lee Child. This wasn’t the first book I’ve read by Lee Child, but it was his first book, published in 1997. It was one of those things: I started reading Lee in the middle of his Jack Reacher series and fell in love with this books. (I think the first book I read was TRIPWIRE, but don’t quote me on that!) I didn’t read them in order, but with Lee you don’t have to because his books aren’t told chronologically. I sometimes wonder if authors feel like I do–that over time, their books have gotten… Read More

Every other Tuesday marks our new Murder HE Writes feature, starting on March 19th–we’re already booked with male thriller writers through May! I’m very excited about this new feature, because we all love our male counterparts. I could tell you who’s joining us … but I won’t 🙂 We’ll make it a surprise. So you get me (again) today, and I’m going to talk about books. Everyone here loves books, or you probably wouldn’t be reading our blog. Sure, many of us like television, and movies, and sewing, and cooking, and sports, and a host of other things, but the… Read More