WHAT WAS THE INSPIRATION BEHIND TWO SECONDS LATE?
My main character has felt the terror of being abducted. When she realizes that the same technology that tracks pets and prison inmates could’ve been used to rescue her sooner, she explores the good and bad of human microchipping. This technology is all around us, in our cell phones, our cars, and so on.
SO FAR, THE TWO TITLES IN THIS NUMBERS SERIES HAVE BEEN UPDATES OF ANCIENT STORIES FOUND IN THE BIBLE. DID YOU START WITH DIGGING UP THE ORIGINAL STORY FIRST AND THEN REWORKING IT FROM THERE, OR DID YOU START YOUR PLOTTING FIRST AND THEN NOTICE THE PARALLELS AND WORK THEM IN?
With this series (as I’ve done in all my books, really), I wanted to explore biblical themes through modern situations and characters. If the Bible doesn’t work in our lives today, then why should we follow it? It is timeless. With that in mind, I’ve taken scriptural ideas and loosely based characters and themes around them. In the case of Two Seconds Late, we see a woman like Esther, raised up “for such a time as this,” as she faces dangerous people in politics, business, and the military.
DO YOU PLAN FOR SUBSEQUENT TITLES IN THE SERIES TO ALSO FOLLOW THIS PATTERN?
Yes, like all my books, there will be biblical themes threaded into the stories in some obvious and no-so-obvious ways.
YOU WRITE A LOT OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF FICTION – RANGING FROM MYSTERIES, TO SUPERNATURAL SUSPENSE, TO WRITING NOVELIZATIONS OF FAMILY FILMS. IN WHAT WAY DOES WORKING IN THE DIFFERENT GENRES HELP YOU AS A STORYTELLER, AND IN WHAT WAYS DOES IT PRESENT A CHALLENGE?
For me, stories are all about personal struggle – whether that’s facing doubts, death, demonic entities, or romance. The mood and settings of a story change, the plots fit different molds for their genre, but at the core I’m writing about people I relate to in some way.
WHO ARE THE WRITERS THAT INSPIRE YOU AS A WRITER?
I’m inspired by writers who don’t give up, even when they are immensely talented. James Lee Burke is a NY Times bestseller, but he published over a dozen novels before reaching that success. Harlan Coben was the same. They didn’t give up. I also love the spiritual struggles and questioning in some of the classic writers, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Steinbeck, and Herman Melville.
WHAT ARE YOU WRITING NOW?
I’m now working on the film novelization of October Baby. The movie will be in theaters March 23, but the book will come out with the DVD release in the fall. I’m also starting work on Three Fatal Blows, featuring Aramis Black and Detective Meade. Should be fun!