BLACK ROSE is a romance/thriller/crime novel. This is a very hard genre to write in, what do you like about this genre? Are there other genres you like to write in? Suspense/thriller is hard, but I think any author would say their genre is difficult. LOL! For me, what I loved the most, was that this genre allows the author to really get into the reader’s head. It forces the reader to think on a different level and use their imagination in a way they normally don’t. For example, in scenes where Lillian hears what the others are going through, but obviously she doesn’t fully know what’s happening to them, you find yourself thinking the worse. In all honesty, you’re probably imagining something 100 times worse than what I was. And as “messed up” as that might be, that’s what I wanted. I wanted you to become as attached to these people as much as possible, and to do that I need that connection between the characters and the reader. As for genres I’d like to try, I would say paranormal. Either as a young adult novel or adult. I think a part of that is just wanting to write…

My parents split up when I was in middle school. I suppose I might have handled it better but even now, looking back, I can’t say why they weren’t able to figure out a way back to each other despite their problems. They still love each other but they decided to part ways. So I suppose that divorce forged in many ways my ideas about a long term relationship. Honestly, I find myself somewhat surprised to be in one. I’ve been with my husband since I was twenty – almost 18 years now since we first met. We’ve been through 5 combat deployments between the two of us and we’re pretty lucky that we still love each other enough to keep the family together, spend time with each other and still be there when things aren’t going so hot. I don’t actually have any sage advise for maintaining a long term relationship but I can tell you what I’ve done through the war and the years to try and keep things going. Your mileage may vary and all that but I figure it’s been working so far, why not pass along what nuggests of whatever this might be called. They…

I have fond memories of playing in fabric stores when I was young. My mom is an excellent seamstress, and often took my sister and me on trips to Levine’s, our local fabric store, to pick out patterns for new dresses, curtains, pillows, or pajamas. She’d drop me by the tables of pattern books where I’d spend hours flipping through the pages, admiring the fashionable sketches and dreaming of the possibilities. As I got older, I would wander the aisles and pick out interesting prints for clothes that I made myself. Fabric stores are like bookstores to me. I can’t walk into one and not come out with a package. There are no better places to fritter away time! So when the idea of a cozy mystery series set in a fabric shop came to mind, I knew it was the perfect way to combine two passions. I imagined an old fabric store like the one I used to play in, one that had been around since the fifties. What treasures might be hidden inside: dusty vintage fabrics in a stockroom, new old stock of buttons, pattern books from decades past, forgotten packages of bias tape, or thick bolts of…

My mother used to say that when I was two or three I would come to her and ask for “choc.” Choc was what I called chocolate milk. Mother was a great reader, particularly of mysteries. So on one particular occasion, she replied, “Let me finish my chapter.” I sighed deeply, she recalled, and said, “Whenever I ask for choc, you say, ‘Let me finish my chapter.’” So mysteries and chocolate apparently were linked in my mind from my earliest days. Just as I love mystery novels, I also love chocolate. I like milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and white chocolate. I like it in solid bars, in truffles, in bonbons. In brownies, in mole sauce, in exclusive chocolate shops, and in bags on the Halloween display at the grocery store. I like Hershey’s, Nestle, and Ghirardelli. I adore Cadbury’s Caramellos. I like anything but jelly centers. Or chewy caramels, even chocolate covered. And chocolate cake mixes. I do draw the line somewhere. It’s no wonder that when my editor asked for a series of cozy books, I came up with chocolate as a theme. So in my new book, THE CHOCOLATE CLOWN CORPSE, my heroine/detective, Lee Woodyard, finds herself handing…