Is it hot out here, or is it just me? *moves shade umbrella, pours lemonade, adds a splash of vodka to mine*
Lisa, welcome! Cute suit. Thanks for kicking off our Summer Sizzle Saturdays here on BEB with us. Not a better accessory to hot summer days than a great book! What’s your favorite summer activity and favorite summer destination?

I travel so much throughout the year that my favorite summer destination is right here at home in Florida. During the summer we spend lots of time at the beach, hanging out with friends on our boat, and paddling around on our kayaks. It’s really what I love the most about Florida, being on the water.

Tell us briefly about the writing process for this book.

I don’t outline. When a book begins, usually with a character voice, I have no idea what’s going to happen, who’s going to show up, what they’re going to do day to day. And I certainly have no idea how things will end. It’s kind of a crazy way to write a book, but I’ve never done it any other way. I write for the same reason that I read, because I want to know what’s going to happen.

This is why I was about halfway through the writing of FRAGILE when I finally realized what it was about — and that the story at its center was an event from my own past.
When I was a teenager, a girl I knew was abducted and murdered. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that we were friends. But we were acquaintances, played together in the same school orchestra. And her horrible, tragic death was a terrifying and hugely traumatic moment in a quiet, suburban town where nothing like that had ever happened before. This event changed me. It changed the way I saw the world. And I carried it with me in ways I wasn’t aware of until I was metabolizing it on the page — more than twenty-five years later.

We’re ready to have a pool party with your characters. Give us your main character’s names and a one-line definition for us to get to know them at our pool party.

Hmm … that would be an interesting pool party. Jones is the former high school heartthrob turned town cop. He’s loved and respected in The Hollows but has a challenging relationship with his son. He’s also hiding an ugliness in his past. His wife Maggie is a family and adolescent psychologist, and her relationship with Jones is often strained with arguments about their son, Ricky. Rick, as their son prefers to be called, is a smart kid who does well in school. But he’s a bit of rebel often clashing with his father. When Rick’s girlfriend Charlene goes missing, tensions run high, and we learn that all of these characters (and others) have been on a collision course since an event that occurred twenty years earlier.

Book End Babes is all about girlfriends and great reads. What are some of the themes we could explore in your book?

Most of my books deal with issues of family, the secrets and lies that dwell beneath the surface — and that’s certainly a large theme in FRAGILE. I also touch on matters of marriage, trust, the relationships between parents and their children. In FRAGILE, another theme I explore is the idea of small town dynamics, how a tiny close-knit community can be a source of strength in hard times but also a burden in some ways.

What is a “must read” book in your beach bag this summer?

I have three: Alafair Burke’s 212, Gregg Hurwitz’s THEY’RE WATCHING and Laura Lippman’s I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE.

BUY THE BOOK HERE

Babes, get a chance to win FRAGILE by commenting on this post before next Friday. Thanks, Lisa! We’re excited you came by to tell us about your book. *Lisa dives in the deep end* I don’t blame her.