Short answer: I don’t. Longer answer: I first got the idea for A Dead Guy at the Summerhouse when I was a young adult, before young adult was even a label. Very long answer: A friend had given me some books in the genre that was known then as Gothic. Remember Gothics? Young girl goes to large house filled with wealthy eccentrics, usually with a threatening figure and a helpful figure (often romance is involved), the threatening one turns out to be Good and the helpful one turns out to be Bad, much fear and emotion, happy ending. The covers usually featured the house with the young girl (usually in her nightdress) running away under a full moon, looking back over her shoulder in terror. I thought it would be fun to write one with a young man instead of a young girl. I thought it would be fun if, instead of trying to winkle out the house’s secrets, everybody would be trying to share them with him and he would be all, “I don’t want to know. I don’t want any drama or excitement....

While preparing my new romantic thriller, Forever Young: Blessing or Curse, for publication, I spent countless hours editing even before turning the manuscript over to my editor for two additional edits. I'd heard too many times about how readers can be so disappointed by favorite authors that they'd stopped reading their books. For a long while, before I learned more about the do's and don'ts of good writing, I really enjoyed reading Danielle Steel romances. The problem with too much knowledge is I came to realize her writing was sloppy and repetitive. In how many books did the heroine's lover or husband have to die so she could go searching for a replacement? After deciding not to read any more of Danielle's books, I did try a few times to reverse that decision when I spotted new releases at the library. After all, her books were easy reads, escapism, and it was kind of comforting to know what to expect. That was then. Now I have a huge TBR pile, a...

Forever Young: Blessing or Curse - Blog Book Tour Stop  Forever Young: Blessing or Curse, a thriller by Morgan Mandel Quite a while ago, when I first read a chapter of my now released thriller, Forever Young: Blessing or Curse , to my critique group at Chicago-North RWA, I received such comments as, "Why would anyone do such a thing?" After hearing that, I had to step back and think. It wasn't enough for my 55 year old character to take an experimental pill to revert her to 24, but I also had to give her a good motive for doing so. Piling more reasons on would be even better. After all, the more a character suffers, the more readers are happy. To make her desperate, I virtually killed her husband, gave her a bad thyroid, and bequeathed her with the beginnings of osteoporosis, a disease which caused her mother's decline and death. Then, if that wasn't enough, I let her lose her job. Satisfied I'd made my character absolutely abject, I...