I’ve been quiet for the last few weeks because:
1) I took my #2 daughter to college. College prep, then driving and getting her settled, then coming home and catching up … took time. Lots of time.
2) Writing! Yes, writing is keeping me very busy. Last year I didn’t have as many tight deadlines; this year they seem to have crept up on me. But I finished the edits on MORTAL SIN, have been writing the next Lucy book (and having great fun!) and am expecting the page proofs for COMPULSION, the next Max book, this week.
3) Sports — both boys in football, daughter in softball, and then we transition over the next couple of weeks to daughter in soccer, older son in basketball and younger son in wrestling. Oh, vey. What have I done? The next two weeks there will be double practices.
(Not to mention, the SF Giants have defied all naysayers and made it to the NCLS championship! So I must make time for baseball …)
4) Family Reunion — I took a weekend off to go out of town for a family reunion with my mom and one of my kids. The others couldn’t come 🙁 … I still wrote each morning, but spent most of the time catching up with my clan.
But! I have some news!
The next two titles in the Lucy Kincaid series are … BEST LAID PLANS (August 4, 2015) and NO GOOD DEED (October 27, 2015.)
The idea for BEST LAID PLANS came in part after reading the indictment of California State Senator Leland Yee. I laughed … though it wasn’t funny. (Except it was.) There were multiple undercover FBI Agents and multiple felonies. For example, Yee introduced the toughest gun control law in California … yet, he was indicted for gun running with the Chinese mob. If I wrote that, everyone would think that was stretching believability! Yee’s political consultant was indicted for murder for hire, bribery, gun trafficking and drug trafficking, among other things. The other targets involved in the indictment were accused of numerous crimes including money laundering. The sad thing is that I COULD make all this up … it’s just that I didn’t think I could put it in one book, so I’ve written about these topics over multiple books. But truly, the cliche fits: truth is stranger than fiction.
My bad guy Congresswoman in BEST LAID PLANS is much smarter than Yee because no one wants to read about dumb criminals. I’m using some of my experience from working in the legislature to hopefully breathe realism into this thriller. Though this isn’t a political thriller, it’s probably the closest I’m going to come to writing one.
I read the whole indictment, and so many of the assertions made me laugh. For example, one of the undercover agents met with one of the targets in a karaoke bar. Yee and his consultant took cash payments to arrange for meetings between the undercover agents and shady businessmen. For example, the consultant and Yee asked the undercover agent for a large sum of money in order to facilitate a meeting with an arms dealer who could smuggle a large cache of weapons through New Jersey.
All this (and much, much more!) by page 25 of the 137 page indictment. Oh, if only I wrote political thrillers!
My story is the same and totally different. My corrupt official is a congresswoman, not a state senator, and it takes place in Texas, not California. She’s also much smarter than Yee, and hard to trip up, but she’s also greedy and arrogant — two of the deadly sins. And she’s very focused on what she does and what she wants. I love cat and mouse games, and I love smart, very bad, female villains — especially when they’re not a psychopath.
SO! As you can see, I’ve been keeping busy, and when I get overwhelmed, I don’t have much to say on my blog. Wednesday I’m guest blogging (and will link to it here) and I’m working on another Writers Wednesday blog 🙂
So, any questions? 😉
P.S. Don’t forget to sign up for my contest — I’m giving away THREE first edition hardcover copies of NOTORIOUS.
Upcoming books:
Ghostly Justice (Seven Deadly Sins 2.5) 10.27.14
Mortal Sin (Seven Deadly Sins 3) 11.10.14
Notorious (Max Revere #1 — mass market release) 12.30.14
Compulsion (Max Revere #2 — hardcover) 4.7.15