Hey everyone! Thanks for visiting my website and clicking around until you got here. Here are some fun facts about myself and my books:
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One of my most favorite things to do is travel and explore new places. Though I’ve never lived in New Orleans, the setting for the Skeptics’ Guide to Love series, I’ve visited several times, filled up on crawfish, beignets, and chocolate pralines, and went on a ghost tour for research. My husband, like Griffin, attended Tulane and spent his college years getting up to shenanigans in the French Quarter and beyond. When I first started working on a Halloween-themed novella for the Under Your Spell boxed set, my mind immediately went to New Orleans as a setting for what eventually became The Skeptics’ Guide to the Mysteries of the Universe.
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Speaking of travel, after researching Vancouver, BC because it was Alec from Ghost of Midnight Past’s hometown, I became so enamored of the city that my husband and I decided to go there for an anniversary trip. It is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to. It’s surrounded by water and trees and in the midst of this urban city with amazing restaurants, there is a freaking rain forest. Where you can climb around on suspension bridges between trees! Which I obviously could not miss.
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Wendy’s house in Ghosts of Midnights Past is based on my friend Miriam’s. We stayed with her during my husband’s college reunion/ my ghost tour research trip to NOLA.
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I love to write flirty banter, pop culture references, smart heroines, and heroes with big hearts and sexy brains. Admittedly, I get a little obsessed with TV shows (hey, research!) and most of my stories have a TV show that goes along with them. Skeptics’ Guide is The X-Files and Ghosts of Midnights Past is Doctor Who. I actually started watching X-Files and Gilmore Girls because I wrote characters who loved these shows.
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Oh, and Sharknado 4: yup, also research.
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I suffer from depression and anxiety. Some days (or weeks, months, even years) are better than others. The summer before I finished Ghosts of Midnights Past and wrote Collide I went through a particularly difficult bout while I got started on some new meds. Getting through daily tasks felt like a small miracle, and my ability to concentrate even on books I loved was shot. But that was also the summer that I discovered comics and graphic novels. Somehow The Lumberjanes, Paper Girls, Gotham Academy, and Archie and co. broke through my brain fog and brought a touch of joy in a dark time. Zadie from Collide being an aspiring comic artist was a nod to those creators who helped me push away the pain.
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Speaking of Collide and occupations, regarding Sean’s: I have no idea whether tourists at Madame Tussaud’s actually have to be asked not to touch wax Channing Tatum’s junk, but I’m pretty sure they do.
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One thing almost all of my stories have in common is a bit of the unexplained or supernatural. Thus my ghost tour business heroines in the Skeptics’ Guide to Love series. My love of all things spooky is strong and probably with the Scary Stories to Read in the Dark books.
Does anyone else remember reading these books as a kid? For me, they conjure up memories of childhood sleepovers: trying to scare each other while munching on popcorn, attempting “the lift” from Dirty Dancing, and then playing Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board. I found one at the library a while back and introduced my kids to it. My oldest loved it, but I think I traumatized my youngest son with my spooky story voice.
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The first books I remember reading on my own as a kid were The Babysitters’ Club by Ann M. Martin. I read those books until they fell apart and still have a box of them. Claudia and Mary Anne were my favorites. I got to meet Ann M. Martin at an ALA convention a few years ago and thank her for being my first favorite author.
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Some of my favorite books are the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series by Laini Taylor, The Arcana Chronicles by Kresley Cole, The Winston Brothers series by Penny Reid, The Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley, Stolen in Love by G.G. Andrew, The Raven Cycle books by Maggie Stiefvater, the True North Series by Sarina Bowen, Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas, Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris, pretty much anything written by Libba Bray