I have always loved reading books. When I was in elementary school, I read every Judy Blume book I could get my hands on. Who doesn’t remember Are you there God, It’s me, Margaret. And of course, I absolutely fell in love with Wilber the pig in Charlotte’s Web.

But as I got older, my tastes turned to stories that were just a little darker. Call it my brooding teenage years. My generation didn’t grow up with sparkly vampires. We grew up with VC Andrews and Flowers in the Attic. Those books were disturbing, at least to my thirteen year old self!

That perhaps led to a revelation that the dark side was in fact very thrilling…to read about, anyway. I can also attribute this to a family trait. It was my mother who gave me my first Stephen King novel. I was about sixteen and I was reading Christine. Awesome. Since that first King novel, I’ve been reading his work ever since.

I definitely wouldn’t say my writing reflects the morbid aspect of King’s work or Dean Koontz, whom I am also a fan of. I enjoy writing the more mysterious aspects of a story. Don’t get me wrong, I do like to be scared out of my mind, but my own work tends to be more of the psychological suspense, mystery genre. Of course, King is the king when it comes to suspense, in my humble opinion.

So, I read what I love to write; suspense, mystery and in my next book, the sequel to Redwood Violet, you’ll see a touch of the macabre as well. The complexities of creating a picture in the reader’s mind that conveys a mixture of these elements will not be taken lightly. And I can guarantee the reader won’t be disappointed.

What were some of your favorite books? How did they shape who you are? That’s the great thing about books. The impressions they leave are indelible.