Like every Southern writer, I thought that I needed to write the next Gone With the Wind.

The plot is very important because writers have to play fair with their readers, but no one would care about the plot if the character work wasn't there. So, basically every book I work on starts with me thinking not just about the bad thing that's going to happen, but how that bad thing is going to ripple through the community, the family of the victim, and the lives of the investigators. I am keenly aware when I'm working that the crimes I am writing about have happened to real people. I take that very seriously.

Don't try to follow in my footsteps. Make your own footsteps! No one else can tell the stories that are inside of you except for you.

[On men:] ... you never know what they're like until you get them home and take them out of their packages.

Books are not like albums, where you can simply download and enjoy your favorite chapter and ignore the rest.

I've always been drawn to historical fiction.

Long Gone is the type of book that should come with a warning. It’s a compulsively readable, highly addictive story. The ending will leave you breathless.