Peg Herring, Mystery Author

  Questions for Readers (and My Personal Answers) Question 1: Do you prefer stand-alone books or series? My answer: Both. I like a good standalone for new, interesting characters and a great plot. Some stories have to be one-offs, because it wouldn’t make sense to continue them. (A reader claimed I should write a sequel to one of my books in which all the major characters were dead at the end!) Series are great for going back to familiar places and people. While for authors it often becomes difficult to find new directions in a series, readers seem okay with repetition. Just ask James Patterson and Janet Evanovich. Although series are fun (and generally easier to write), I eventually get tired of them. My publisher was eager for me to continue the Loser Mysteries (Peg Herring), and fans asked for more of the Kidnap Capers (Peg) and the Sleuth Sisters (Maggie Pill), but I felt like I was done with those people. I didn’t want to force myself to write about them to the point tha

    Whether you open a website or walk into a bookstore, there's nothing like the feeling of choosing what you're going to read next. Sadly, I've been disappointed more often than thrilled this year, and at lunch with a friend the other day, she said the same. "Maybe we read too much," she told me. "We've heard it all and seen it all as far as stories go." While that might be true, I can still get pulled into a book if it's done well, as I have been with my current read, WE BEGIN AT THE END by Chris Whitaker. It's not an easy book, but when I find myself thinking, even worrying, about the characters when I'm not reading, I know it's because of good writing. Of course, reading is as individual as writing. I can't tell you the book will affect you the same way. I can only give you my reaction. Choosing a new book is both easy and hard in our time. There are tons of books and tons of places to find them. Still, I've noticed tha

Note: I was going to call this post "Old Readers," but I was afraid it might bring to mind the original Kindle. I'm looking at those of us who've read all our lives: Old Readers. My husband started reading in his fifties. My father started even later than that. That isn't me. I can't remember when I didn't have my nose in a book. Reading is wonderful, but a lifetime of reading leads to a problem: What to read next. When I was a kid, my choices were limited to what books our school library had, though I eventually moved on to reading my mom's mystery novels (MacDonald, Carr, Christie, etc.), and gothics (Stewart, duMaurier, and the like). As a young adult I read historical pot-boilers from Frank Yerby (lots of rape threat) to Rosemary Rodgers (lots of actual rape). I also read a lot of biographies back then, mostly movie stars like David Niven and John Wayne. Now I'm pretty old, and I've read a lot of stuff. When people gush about the ne