I recently did a fun feature piece on The Thrill Begins, an International Thriller Writers blog for debut authors. They asked me to blog about things new authors might want to know during the first year of publication. And I wrote about a topic that I wish I had known when I signed my contract...

Check out the story here.

Although I'm not new to the publishing world, I am very much new to the suspense/thriller genre. Just after I finished writing The Seven Year Itch: A J.J. McCall Novel and started getting feedback from the Beta readers, I realized I might have some major revisions. While the readers said they "love, love, love" the story and couldn't wait for the next installment (and one of the Beta readers didn't know me), an agent had a less than pleasing reaction. He said that it was well written but it…

Although I'm not new to the publishing world, I am very much new to the suspense/thriller genre. Just after I finished writing The Seven Year Itch: A J.J. McCall Novel and started getting feedback from the Beta readers, I realized I might have some major revisions. While the readers said they "love, love, love" the story and couldn't wait for the next installment (and one of the Beta readers didn't know me), an agent had a less than pleasing reaction. He said that it was well written but it…

As a voracious reader, I've read a lot of romantic suspense and thriller novels. One thing I've noticed is that there seems to be a formula. Stories usually began with a dead body and the rest of the book took the reader on a journey to find out how the body got that way. And it's a formula that works and has worked for years with good reason. But when plotting my upcoming J.J. McCall series, I had to figure out something different because I discovered an aversion that would make the usual…

FBI Special Agent Antonio Donato is special indeed. The second part of J.J. McCall's love triangle, his character based on my 20 year love affair with all things mafia related (thanks to an obsession with The Godfather I and II and The Sopranos) and an FBI Agent I met once while visiting the FBI's NY field office on a case and later for an intra-agency counterintelligence conference.

Drop.…

I haven't had many opportunities to talk about what I term "my former life" as an FBI operations specialist working in counterintelligence. I tend to not spread that around. But now that I'm writing this new J.J. McCall series all those years of experience have really become part of my writing craft, especially in terms of character development. I think it will ultimately help bring a more authentic experience to the reader.

What's Counterintelligence at the…

I always draw on my life and career experiences when developing new characters

for my novels. FBI Agent J.J. McCall is no different. She's actually very

loosely based on an FBI Agent I worked with during my 12 year tenure at the

Bureau. Of all the agents I worked with, and I worked with quite a few, she

always stood out in my mind for many reasons.



One reason she clings to my

memory is that she was, at least at the time, the only African-American…