A.    The first question opens a whole philosophical gambit! Basically, I'm now blessed to be a published author, and lucky enough to have made tons of friends in the business, published, not published, and hanging around for other art forms perhaps, as well. My mom was an Irish immigrant, my dad Scottish, so that certainly formed whatever I am today. I started out in theater, had a few decent jobs in screen advertising, but not enough to actually make working pay once I had three of my children. I was, am, and forever will be, sadly, the world's worst housekeeper, so I was truly desperate when I started out writing. I was pretty good at rejection those first years--a good reason to have majored in and done theater! So, now, five children are still the most important beings in life, plus my nephew, grand-nephew, daughter and niece-in-law. They keep the world ever spinning, me half crazy all the time, and yet, they bring so much to the table. I have done baseball books because of the kids, wound up in ballroom dance with the kids, took Scuba with the kids, and so on. A book called Picture Me Dead was based on one of Shayne's friends who went from being a he to a she, but I'm pretty sure he was all right with it.

A.    The Dead Room came about because of my love of New York and the fact that it's such a wonderful place, we don't always get to see the history there.

A.    Leslie's love the old and archeology are integral to the plot, as it's her ability to find things no one else might that brings her center stage from the beginning. It was an unusual book for me, but I considered my ending the only possible way a satisfying conclusion could come about. And it's followed by The Death Dealer, which brings Joe, Matt's cousin back to New York on the trail of history again--in The Death Dealer, they wind up on the trail of a killer who is imitating scenes from the stories of Poe. Once again, I loved the research!

A.    I love the ghost stories because of the what ifs involved. The longer I've been doing them, the more strange events I get to hear about. The Death Dealer has a scene at the beginning taken straight from real life, a very strange happening to a friend who is a rock solid Miami police officer. I love straight suspense--I always have. And gothic suspense, and . . . actually, I just love reading. I do read everything in the world, fiction, non-fiction. I grew up on Poe, Verne, Dickens, Dafoe, and more, and then Mary Stewart, Dorothy Eden, Jean Plaidy--and more. Also, Hammer films, vampires, banshees, leprechauns, what have you. I'm grateful to have the chance to write what intrigues me and what I love. And history--how can you not love history? People have always behaved better, worse, more bizarrely, and more uniquely than the imagination can really fathom, so we have tons of stories in every city, state, and country!

A.    Shannon Drake is the only other pseudonym I'm working with now--and these days, she is writing strictly historicals. The Pirate Bride will be published in November. Once upon a time, she was writing vampires as well, but the publisher's thought was that vampires are closer to contemporary, and someone wanting a historical might not be happy with a vampire, and vise versa.

A.    Right now, there are three books coming out in a row--Deadly Night, out now, Deadly Harvest, corresponding with Thanksgiving, and Deadly Gift, for Christmas. These books focus on the Flynn brothers. Tough Irish boys who lost their parents when they were young, they've always stood up for and relied upon one another. As adults, they've all worked for law enforcement in one way or another, but found that they needed to leave, and thus, they formed their own company. The first book takes place in New Orleans , where bones have a habit of popping up and Aidan works with a local tarot reader--against his will--to find a serial killer. Oh, they also discover they've inherited a plantation with legends and ghosts, and the ghosts from the past mingle with more current ghosts, and do their very best for vindication on many levels. Deadly Harvest takes Jeremy to Salem , Massachusetts , and Deadly Gift begins in Dublin. Zach heads there to help a friend, but returns with far more than he bargained for.

April brings Nightwalker which takes place in Los Vegas where a current mystery and murders trace back to a gunfight that occurred in the nineteen hundreds. Ringo is my favorite ghost; I wish he were real, I wish he were mine. He fixes the dice.

A.    Now, I'm working on a vampire series which will be known as the Prophesy Series; first book, Dust to Dust. It brings together the living and the dead--and the undead--when twelve people must come together to prevent the apocalypse foretold by the Mayan prophesy, one that has disturbing similarities to many beliefs around the world. In fall, a ghost story will take place in St. Augustine, Florida , and Christmas will bring witchcraft together with the goodwill of the season--and a Revolutionary soldier who had gone from a hangman's noose in New York City to an ice-laden road in the middle of Massachusetts. A doubting family must somehow send him back, or . . . .