Natural Progression of a Novelist
When my
first novel, The Lodge, came out a decade ago I was thrilled. The cover was
so beautiful it nearly made me cry when I held it in my hands and gazed
lovingly at the magnificent artwork, and at the time it was my best work and I
still believe it has merit. When I read it now, though, I can pick out a number
of things I would do differently today, but that’s the natural progression of a
novelist, to learn from ones mistakes to enable each book to be better than the
last.
Since publication
of TheLodge I’ve learned a great deal about voice, point of view, pace, and
the importance of a good editor (I’m apparently not the infallible grammarian I
once thought I was). The improvement between each of my early novels was
significant. After nearly fifteen years of writing, the improvements are more
subtle from book to book and the determination today of which novel is my
“best” novel is probably more a matter of taste. I’ve also learned about my
niche. The Lodge is a cozy mystery, the traditional “who done it?” Its
sequel, Deadly Ruins, made it immediately clear that I was more attuned
to suspense and my work has continued to evolve happily and comfortably into
adventure suspense with elements of romance.
So for those
who follow my work, I hope you can appreciate the progression, growth, and
evolution of my novels. But, most of all I hope you enjoy the adventures
whether at a lodge in Alaska, the mountains of Wyoming, the deserts of the
American Southwest, the jungles of Mexico, or throughout an epic jaunt around
the world.
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