A Fearful Thing, the fifth novel in my Rebecca Series, opens with a car chase through the streets of London. On page two of the book, we...

My new novel, A Fearful Thing, is the fifth novel in the Rebecca Series. It is set in the year 1985, four (fictional) years after the...

Over the years, when I have found myself speaking to students in their classrooms, or to adults at book-signing events, I have often been...

I have noted before, in other posts, how fast and hard I tend to get rolling when an action scene approaches. Since I am fast on the...

In the introduction to his novel tilted Winter Prey, John Sandford observes that this story was one of his first in which the novel’s...

Authors, readers, and book reviewers often agree that in many novels, the “evil” character is the one who is the most carefully developed...

During book readings and other kinds of presentations related to my novels, I have often been asked that kind of question. The most...

In Part One of this two-part post, I wrote about how novels are often pieced together. And I mentioned that, in the first two novels in...

Whenever I am a guest teacher for an hour or so in a high-school or middle-school English class, I usually pull a novel off of the...

What do authors think about when choosing names for the characters in their novels? This is a question I get often at book signings or in...

When my first novel was completed – when it was still just a manuscript – it moved from the managing editor’s desk to the desk of a young...

Near the end of my second adult-level novel – the second in the Rebecca Series – we read this passage: The gunman, kicking wildly at her...

I mentioned in an earlier entry that I am always appreciative if an author chooses to work a background romance into a mystery or action...

I have been complimented from time to time on the action scenes in my books, both in the adult and in the young-adult stories. Readers...

If a novel doesn’t end in a way I like, I probably won’t read another story by that same author. I’ve already noted, in my comments about...

Most of us don’t read very far in a novel, whether it’s a young-adult novel or an adult novel, unless we like the opening. We want to...

As the Rebecca Series has developed over the years, my central character has gradually come to be regarded as an unofficial member...

When I begin writing an action scene – and there are usually a lot of them in my novels – I tend to get so caught up in what is happening...

In team sports, “bench players” can have immense importance in helping a team get through its season successfully. These are players who...

All my novels have at least one background romance that develops along with the main themes. Since my stories comprise of action/mystery...