My mother would like me to start all interviews by stating that she and my father are perfectly normal. They are proud of me, and as perplexed as anyone by my novels.

Once, I was my mother's daughter. Now I am my daughter's mother.

If you choose to do something, do it with your utmost. And remember, expect nothing and life will be velvet.

Before I became a suspense novelist, I wrote romantic suspense as Alicia Scott.

I'm unique for a suspense author in that I don't have a specialty background. A lot of suspense writers used to be lawyers or crime beat reporters. I didn't even know a cop when I started out. I finally figured out that I could visit prisons - I just had to be willing to make the phone calls.

It's kind of the yin and yang that fascinate me. That for all the evil men do, there are also people who work obnoxiously long hours and sacrifice their personal lives because it is a calling - if they don't keep our streets safe, if they aren't there to advocate for and save beaten women and children and murder victims, who will?

Mothers hold close, fathers let go. Maybe that’s the way of the world.