Who do you love? It's a question anyone should be able to answer. A question that defines a life, creates a future, guides most minutes of one's days. Simple, elegant encompassing. Who do you love?

We're all in this together - when one writer succeeds, all writers succeed. I love discovering new authors. I think we need to take care of each other and talk about craft and nurture talent.

I don't know much about international policing and I would love to learn more. Especially in this day and age when the Internet is rapidly reducing borders and crime can happen on a larger scale than ever before. These things intrigue me.

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.

When I got my very first phone call that I'd hit the 'New York Times' list, I had a small rush of 'I've made it!' But the next morning, it occurred to me I didn't know what it was, so I called my agent and asked what being a 'New York Times' bestselling author really meant. He informed me that I was now a thousand pound gorilla.

What I loved about romances was the character, and I think I still bring that to my novels. What romance taught me was that the 'who' will always matter more than the 'what.' It's fun to come up with plots, but I want to make sure the reader cares about who it's happening to.

You try as a parent. You love beyond reason. You fight beyond endurance. You hope beyond despair. You never think, until the very last moment, that it still might not be enough.