Lips: Kiss the Lips that Lie follows an English au pair with hidden secrets who meets a reserved CPA, and they have an instant connection that quickly turns into a tangled web of deception. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

Lover’s lies and Family Secrets. I started to think about all the harmless (and not so harmless) lies lovers tell each other, and the private mythologies which armor families down through the decades. Also about the ways people know others in their lives. In real life most people don’t have plausible backstories.

Technically, LIPS grew out a desire to capture in prose style a feeling of hush or quietude. A breath caught and held. Waiting and anticipation. The Prologue introduces the nighttime silence of the big lake, then Selene’s first visit to the cottage and the exploration of various objects which reveal a kind of cloistered family history. At it heart of the novel is a love story of the resolution of opposites—Selene’s exhibitionism paired with DB’s voyeuristic tendencies.

What character did you enjoy writing for? Was there one that was more challenging to write for?

With LIPS, there was so much writing and rewriting, and adding and deleting of characters, that I became very attached to all of them. Glory and Gillian were great fun to write, and Miss Addy was a constant surprise. Of course, Selene is the key to the kingdom, and she was tricky.

Looking back, I think DB was the most difficult to write. I believe he is the most internalized and enigmatic. He is a man trapped by conditions most of which are not of his own making. He is privileged but bound hand and foot by the expectations of others. I think he deals with it by withdrawing. He feels Selene is the only one who truly sees him. It is hard to write someone who doesn’t say much.

I felt that there were a lot of great twists and turns throughout the novel. Did you plan this before writing the novel, or did the twists develop organically while writing?

Once a story gets rolling, it develops organically. All my planning occurs in my head. That approach requires a lot of backtracking and do-overs. Characters show up and then leave. Bits of backstory crop up in unexpected places. Many a day I ended up wishing  I had patience for some serious planning.

What is the next book that you are working on, and when can your fans expect it to be out?

I’m currently working on a sequel to “SEREN” (working title AIX) which takes place in France, and also a fun project about 1970s Detroit called “The Vitruvian Murders” which has some witchery in it.

I hope AIX will be ready by next year. The Detroit book may or may not be ready by summer next.

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