DEE HENDERSON

 

Dee Henderson is the bestselling, award-winning author of 15 previous novels, including the acclaimed O'MALLEY series and UNCOMMON HEROES series. She is a lifelong resident of Illinois. Learn more at www.deehenderson.com

To see the book video trailer and read the first chapters visit  www.deehenderson.com.

 

FULL DISCLOSURE

Dee Henderson

Ann Silver is a cop's cop. As the Midwest Homicide Investigator, she is called in to help local law enforcement on the worst of cases, looking for answers to murder. Hers is one of the region's most trusted investigative positions.

 

Paul Falcon is the FBI's top murder cop in the Midwest. If the victim carried a federal badge or had a security clearance, odds are good Paul and his team see the case file or work the murder.

 

Their lives intersect when Ann arrives to pass a case off her desk and onto his. A car wreck and a suspicious death offer a lead on a hired shooter he is tracking. Paul isn't expecting to meet someone, the kind that goes on the personal side of the ledger, but Ann Silver has his attention.

 

The better he gets to know her, the more Paul realizes her job barely scratches the surface of who she is. Paul wonders just what secrets Ann is keeping, until she shows him the John Doe Killer case file, and he starts to realize just who this lady he is falling in love with really is....

 

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S.S: Dee, welcome to the Suspense Sisters! How long have you been writing?

 

I started writing seriously when I was in my teens and first had a manuscript that was good enough to show an editor when I was in my thirties. Most authors don't take that much practice, but it's not uncommon to write five or six books before you figure out everything you need to learn to make stories work.

S.S: Do you write full time? If the answer is no, what else do you do? If you are a full time author, what other jobs did you have in the past?

I now have the luxury of writing full time.

I’m wired by God to be a story teller. Hours spent working on a story are not a job, they are in fact the reward for having gotten the rest of my life uncluttered enough so I can do what I want – and most often that’s a pen and paper and being lost in a story I’m creating.

Writing has always been my first love, and I knew that from a young age, I was just smart enough to understand the doorway to what I wanted for my life had a two part answer. One part being a good paying job I enjoyed – being an engineer where logic dominated the job description – and using that job to pay the bills and give me time to learn to write good fiction. The second part using the savings I gathered over a decade to take a risk when I was ready to make the move to writing full time.

I used being an engineer to pay my bills, give me time to practice writing fiction, and develop what I wanted for a career. There’s a book called Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell that talks about the time and practice it takes to excel in a field. Being an engineer for a decade enabled me to become a writer because it gave me a decade of serious practice at the craft before I sold my first book.

S.S: Tell us about the moment you finally felt like a “real author”?

It’s been very recently actually.

I have sixteen books published now. I like this profession mostly because this is what I used to dream about doing when I was a little girl. I even remember the summer school art class where we got to create our own book. It had a cardboard cover with fabric across it, and a spine, and pages. I was delighted to hold that in my hand. I wanted to do that when I grew up.

The Full Disclosure books are spectacular. I've still got my copies of the hardback and trade paper on the coffee table to pick up and enjoy. It's what I've always dreamed of, a well done hardback that feels like a real book, not something small and thin, and the cover on the trade edition is beautiful. They feel like really nice milestones. It only took sixteen books to get what I have been dreaming about since I was a little girl so it's been a very nice year.

S.S.: Who has been your greatest supporter as an author? 

My parents. I was blessed because my dad never once said, implied, or doubted, that I could be a writer if that was what I wanted to be. He would recognize the effort, and encourage me to keep at it. I’m sure he thought it was very long odds that a girl with a talent for math and not for English was going to turn into a writer able to make a living at it, but he let me have the dream and he encouraged me to keep working at it. Being a writer is a child’s dream come true, and it stayed alive over the years because my family made room for me to dream it. My mother has been, for the last 15 years, the helper that makes it day in and day out possible to write. She’s stuffed more envelopes and counted more bookmarks and fixed more meals for me that I can count. If the books have sold, its been because of Mom’s tireless efforts to tell people about them on my behalf. She’s made the income of being a writer possible.

S.S:  Why suspense? Do you write in any other genres? If so, what?

Romantic suspense has different goals in the hands of different authors. I simply want interesting characters working out a difficult problem. I like a fast-paced story. I love a good romance. And since I’m writing primarily for my own enjoyment, I gravitate toward romantic suspense. The books have a variety of approaches for where that suspense originates, from the past, or from an event which just occurred, but it’s the mystery of unraveling the truth in the time pressure of unfolding events that makes this kind of story work.

S.S: How does your faith play into your writing?

I think God teaches me a lot about Himself by the questions I wrestle with in the books, and in the process of writing the story itself. The entire process of getting a story to work from beginning to end, getting it through the publishing process and released for people to read, requires more prayer than just about any activity or problem I have in life.

What a character thinks about God, whether they believe or not, interests me. That’s the key difference between an ABA story that’s a good romance and mystery, and one of my books. I’m not ready to say a manuscript is finished until I’ve figured out what I want the book to share about God.

S.S: If you couldn’t write, what else would you want to do?

Writing is work, so I love the months I’m not writing as I get to explore what else I might like to do. Every book I write I think, is this the last book? I trade the markets and enjoy that (love bear markets). I would think about painting in a serious way (God is an incredible artist). 

S.S:  Tell us about your current release.
 

In Full Disclosure I gave two very good cops a car wreck, a suspicious death, and a lead on a hired shooter. The case which began so simply will lead them to the kind of secret that will change how history is written once it is known.

So at it's most basic Full Disclosure is a mystery and a romance.

I like writing about cops. With Full Disclosure I wanted to portray the job that a cop’s life really is—the cases keep coming to be solved and if you’re going to have a private life outside of work, you’d best learn to create time for it and nurture it. I gave Ann and Paul a tough case to deal with, and secrets that would have an explosive impact when revealed.

I also wanted to write a romance that was a bit against type. He wants to get married and is looking for the right lady. She’s content being single, and hasn’t been thinking about marriage. It made for a fascinating pair of characters in Ann Silver and Paul Falcon that I think readers are going to enjoy.

That shift from single to married is a wonderful window into who people are and I love to explore it in my books. How people get to that point, why they cross it. I wanted to write more about their lives after the wedding, and this story let me go that direction. It’s something I hope to do more of in future books – write that next chapter in my characters lives.

S.S: Where did you get your inspiration for this book?

I write a lot about survivors—overcoming what’s happened, learning something about yourself and friends, deepening what you know about God—it adds a rich layer to the stories I want to explore. This book follows that basic theme, so I think its going to read as familiar to my fans even though its more layered than prior books.

S.S: What is the main thing you hope readers remember from your story?

That life walking with God can lead in unexpected directions, but God has a good plan in mind, and knows who we are.

Fiction and characters are a place to sketch out what is true about real life, to make it easier to see. Paul had a choice about where his life was heading, so did Ann. It’s good to enjoy where you are at. It’s also good to consider new opportunities when they present themselves. And most of life – it’s not our plan. God’s the one in control. It’s what God brings into our lives and how we respond that is the interesting part of life. God knows us better than we know ourselves, and his plans are often much richer than we can imagine for ourselves.

S.S: What are you working on now?

There are two stories in the finishing stage.

Jennifer: An O’Malley Love Story begins when Jennifer and Tom meet, and ends with the opening of The Negotiator. I love this series of books, and doing Jennifer’s story was important to me to have the arc of the series complete. This will come out as a small gift-size hardback in May 2013. (I am still thinking about doing Tom’s story in the year after The Rescuer.)

The second manuscript just left my desk this week for my first readers. I love Charlotte and Bryce, I love the romance that develops between them, and the story behind who Charlotte is, and the layers of the crime that needs solved. This was my fun time for the summer as the Full Disclosure marketing was going on. I got to spend the months with Charlotte and Bryce and loved every minute of it.

S.S: A tough question: Where do you want to be career-wise in five years? Ten years? 

My goals haven’t changed much since I began publishing twelve years ago. I want to make my books a destination for readers—those who read my stories because of what they say about God, as well as with readers who enjoy my books in spite of the fact they talk about God.

In the last year my goal has become a lot more specific. I want the O’Malley series to replace Shades of Gray in the bestseller lists. It bothers me the direction culture is going, that real romance is being lost in the distortion of what popular culture thinks it is. I’d like to revive a sense of true romance and remind readers good guys do exist.

S.S:  Now let’s get a little personal. Name two things on your “bucket list” that you haven’t done yet.   

I was asked one time – what is your favorite holiday? And I replied I actually don’t like holidays – they are too busy – I’d rather have a regular day that goes 24 hours without something going wrong during it. That would be a nice holiday.

When I read your question about a bucket list, I had a similar reaction. I want more of the same. I want a week like last week where I wrote some on a story, talked with friends, took a walk with God, read a few books, watched a movie, and slept. Oh, and my mother called and asked if I wanted something brought back from the Dairy Queen. It’s hard to beat that kind of nice week. Even the weather was nice. Sometimes earth feels like a slice of heaven. I don’t have major goals I want to accomplish, or things I dream about doing. I’ve already got them. I simply want more of the same, and time to enjoy them.

S.S.: Where can readers find you on the internet?

I appreciate the mail and the feedback – good or bad – its how I learn what works and what doesn’t with stories. I invite you to drop by www.DeeHenderson.com and say hello.

S.S: It’s been many years since your last book. We missed you…what have you been doing? 

It’s always nice to be missed. It wasn’t a plan to have so much time between books, it’s simply how this particular story evolved. Full Disclosure originated in a mystery series I had developed over the course of a couple years. That series turned into the backstory for a larger single title. I don’t recommend arriving at a book that way, but I personally like the results of a richer plot line and more complex characters. I hope to be creating stories for my readers to enjoy for decades to come, just hopefully with not as much time between finished stories in the future.

SS.: hat has God been teaching you lately?

He’s working on teaching me to live within my limits. I tend to stretch too far and not leave enough margin in my life, around my finances in particular, or my health. I find it easier to manage areas like my time. On that, I keep a limited list rather than a to-do-list. I know I won’t get done what everyone would like from me, so I chose the items that personally matter to me, or impact my family. Most stuff simply doesn’t get done. It’s easier to accept that, then live like you can do everything. The other areas of life are much tougher for me to discipline. Anyway, God’s been working on that one for a while. I’ll be glad when He’s helped me solve it.

S.S: Who’s your favorite character in all your books and why? 

I love Quinn and Lisa as a couple. Lisa has a depth to her backstory that I did not realize was there until I wrote The Truth Seeker and it fit so well with the faith theme of the book being the resurrection that I think it was God inspired in small ways. There are scenes with Lisa and Quinn from that book I remember better than any of the other stories I’ve written.

S.S.: Are any of your characters based on real people? 

You can pretty much read a book of mine for the dog I either have or want to have. But the characters in my stories come from my imagination.

S.S: Would you call yourself a Christian fiction writer or a fiction writer who happens to be a Christian? Why? 

I’m a Christian fiction writer. What a character thinks about God, whether they believe or not, interests me. People in real life have their work, their day-to-day life, their personality and character, and then they have the rest of who they are. Stories that ignore the fact people have a spiritual dimension in their lives lose out on a rich vein of character insights. What someone believes in and why, what they do with that belief and how it changes, or doesn’t change, how they live their lives, is rich story material. It’s useful when you want to write a strong book to use every tool available. Ignoring faith makes people two dimensional.


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