Lunch Tales: Suellen follows a lawyer recovering from a toxic relationship whose attempt to begin again with the ideal man is thwarted by a health crisis. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

Lunch Tales: Suellen is personal for me as I went through a similar medical crisis at the same age and know firsthand all the feelings and emotions she had to go through. I have met so many extraordinary and resilient women in my lifetime—inspiring women who have had to overcome hardship and health challenges. This book is for all of them.

Was there anything from your own life that you put into the characters in your novel?

The law office scene is drawn from my own personal experience in working at a major New Jersey law firm for several years where I met a lot of colorful characters and made lifelong friends.

What were some of the emotional and moral guidelines you followed when developing your characters?

In writing and developing my characters, I wanted them to be as truthful as they could be in dealing with the seriousness of the challenges they faced, emotionally, realistically, and morally. The guidelines for realistic fiction are simple. Be totally honest and reliable in the telling, no matter how difficult or heart-wrenching. When it comes to authenticity, readers are quite intuitive.

Can we look forward to more books in the Lunch Tales series? Where will it take readers?

More books in the Lunch Tales series are forthcoming. Lunch Tales: Teagan is slated to publish in January of 2026. Teagan is Suellen’s best friend and her story is uniquely compelling. They are major characters in each other’s story, and the same supporting characters are in both novels. Originally, when I drafted Lunch Tales, it was from four women’s points of view in one novel. After I read it through, I decided to give each of these women more space for the reader to get to know them better and gave them their own standalone novel in the Lunch Tales series. Once I did that, they evolved in ways I never imagined at the start.

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