My favorite character in SWEET SALT AIR
Do I play favorites when it comes to my characters? That depends on how you define playing favorites. For starters, I couldn’t spend a year writing a book about people I didn’t like. That said, if each of them is totally loveable, the book is boring. Also, I like to see growth in my characters, which…
Read MoreLearning about the ingredients in SWEET SALT AIR
I’m talking about doing research, so that I know what I’m saying when I write a book like Sweet Salt Air. Okay. This being fiction, technically I can do what I want. But I pride myself on writing books that are realistic, and in cases where serious things are involved (like cord blood and stem…
Read MoreWhere SWEET SALT AIR came from
Most of my books are inspired by things I read about in the newspaper. The inspiration for Sweet Salt Air was much more personal. I have three sons, all of whom have recently had children, and when each of those babies was born, its umbilical cord blood was harvested, frozen, and stored. The premise is…
Read MoreHow much of me is in SWEET SALT AIR
June 18. What seemed like a long way off a year ago is coming fast. You all have been so patient. I thank you for that. I just reread Sweet Salt Air. I mean, wow, I’ve been distracted from it. I’ve probably read twenty books since I finished writing it, and now I’m working on my next book,…
Read MoreThe Boston Marathon and me …
I’m not a runner, never have been, but the Boston Marathon is in my bones. I grew up along the route and have watched the race year after year. Marathon Day is a holiday in Massachusetts, officially commemorating the battles of Lexington and Concord that sparked the Revolutionary War in 1775, but since we never…
Read MoreTo e-read or not
A totally funny thing happened to me yesterday. I was reading an actual, physical book, reached the end of a page, and tapped the right margin to turn to the next. Have you ever done this? It wouldn’t happen, of course, if I read books in only one form. But I’m constantly switching between hardcover,…
Read MoreTwo more book recommendations
What kinds of books do you like? Do you switch between genres or stick to one? Me, I usually avoid non-fiction. Since I read the newspaper daily, I don’t want more of the same in my free time. Likewise blood and gore; the real world has plenty. No, fiction is definitely my thing, but, within…
Read MoreNaming the characters in my next book
You’ve heard of Dennis Lehane, right? Since he’s a home town boy, my local press is all over him. So I wasn’t surprised to hear tv reports that his dog, Tessa (yup, that’s her pictured above), had disappeared on Christmas Eve and that he was offering to name a character in his next book after…
Read MoreWhy I’m not a book reviewer
I’m going to be very careful here not to slam those who do review books. I admire many of them. They read constantly and have a wide enough repertoire to give them a grand perspective on books. But the contents of a book review is about more than reading. It’s about the reviewer’s personal history…
Read MoreLOW PRESSURE: a book recommendation
Sandra Brown and I go way back. We started in the field of romance together, actually met at the first ever Romance Writers of America conference. We raised our kids, saw them marry and have their own kids at roughly the same time. Both straying from the romance genre, I entered the field of women’s…
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