Five Key Ways I Built My Indigo World

Guest Blogger: Jordan Dane The inspiration behind Indigo Awakening (book #1 in the Hunted Series, Harlequin Teen) came from researching Indigo children. Query “Indigo Child” on the Internet and you’ll get over 8 million hits. Real life and headlines often inspire my books and this time is no exception. Conspiracy …

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WITH FRIENDS LIKE THIS, WHO NEEDS ENEMIES?

Guest Blogger: Molly Cochran POISON is about the dark side of friendship. When we learn that people we’ve loved and trusted have betrayed or abandoned us, it hurts. It hurts every time, even if we aren’t completely innocent of the charges against us. After four girls in Ainsworth boarding school …

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Trust A Cop? Not The Amish!

Guest Blogger: Karen Harper Unless you know Amish thinking as well as I do, after studying and visiting them for twenty years and writing nine suspense novels set among them (or, OK, unless you remember the classic movie WITNESS,) you probably don’t realize the Amish usually “have no truck” with …

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Where Stories Come From

Guest Blogger: Carmen Ferreiro-Esteban Sometimes the inspiration for a story comes from an event in the writer’s past. That was the case for my young adult fantasy TWO MOON PRINCESS. Andrea’s journey from her medieval kingdom to modern day California and back parallels my own between Spain and the States, even …

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How Characters Change With Real Life

Guest Blogger: Eric Van Lustbader When I created the character of Jack McClure for FIRST DAUGHTER, I made him very much like me. He was a dyslexic. My dyslexia is far less severe than Jack’s is, but nonetheless it created both challenges and advantages for me. I kept exchanging letters …

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Why I Wrote LAST TO DIE

Guest Blogger: Tess Gerritsen When I was ten years old, I got a fingerprint kit for my birthday. I’d been obsessed with Nancy Drew mystery novels, and I was convinced that I, too, could be a spunky girl detective and track down all the dangerous criminals lurking in my suburban …

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Sex and Secrets: THE OTHER WOMAN

Guest Blogger: Hank Phillippi Ryan Who would be “the other woman?” The dentist’s office was a strange place to consider that. I was in having a root canal—sigh—and reading an old PEOPLE magazine in the waiting room. (That’s what you do, right, when your face is puffy and the dentist …

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What is smart?

Guest Blogger: Kathleen George Sometimes a panel—even one you’re on—makes you think about it a whole year later.  That was the case for me long ago, after the 2011 Thrillerfest. Joseph Finder took a lot of abuse for coming up with our panel title, “Can a Thriller Be Both Exciting and …

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Researching the Amish

Guest Blogger: Julie Kramer For my latest thriller, I decided to go Amish. At that time, I didn’t realize that Amish fiction was on an upswing. I just needed another Minnesota-based adventure for Riley Spartz, the reporter/heroine in my series set in the desperate world of  TV news. Minnesota has …

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Caitlin Strong: Action Hero!

Guest Blogger: Jon Land Female action hero.  For many thriller fans, that’s an oxymoron.  And you can’t really blame them.  A woman capable of mixing it up with the likes of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher?  Come on, no way, right? Wrong.  Caitlin Strong, who returns this month in STRONG VENGEANCE, …

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