News/Blog

Thea Hughes is the first openly lesbian graduate of the Philadelphia Police Academy. As she struggles to become a homicide detective she faces open hostility and partners who want nothing to do with her. She and her latest partner, Ariel Dampier, were at loggerheads until a serial killer case dropped into their laps. A naked body of a teen runaway painted with her own blood spurs an investigation by the two. Clues are few and they must sadly wait for a second body to inch closer to the killer.

As important — sometimes more crucial than the plot of my books are the characters I create. I live with them for months, from the time I begin planning my novel until I’ve finished the final draft. Most of my antagonists come from a very dark place and over the course of the novel you see growth and even a glimmer of happiness. Every one of us is flawed. It’s how you deal with your flaws that determines your path in life.

You read a book or watch a TV show and it’s pretty obvious who is the villain (or antagonist). But I think a definition of a villain is far more murky than what many think. In my novel Blood Sacrifice there is the obvious villain — Thomas Samuels. Telling you is not giving anything away. He’s a serial killer and from the outset I let the reader know his identity.

I have always found the plots for my novels in the headlines of newspapers (often from the much maligned but addictive New York Post). My first book Hungry Eyes was inspired by the kidnapping of 10-year old Katie Beers in 1992.

Creating a character that the reader can empathize with (even a villain) is what drives my writing. My protagonists are all flawed, just as we are in real life. In the course of my novels I first peel off the layers that made the character what he or she is and as the novel progresses there is growth in that character. By no means does my protagonist become perfect . . . not even close, but there is growth and the reader is taken along for a ride to grasp the changes.