SUSAN: Diane, I loved your new book SCANDALOUS. A historical romance, for our readers. Your characters grabbed me right away. The hero is honorable and downright yummy. And you’ve populated the story with other great characters. His family is so entertaining, a big, lively group of rowdy uncles. How did you come to develop that fascinating family?

DIANE: I come from a family of six children, I'm number three and only the girl. Big families and their dynamics are easier for me to work with than smaller ones. Understanding the pecking order without thinking about it makes everything flow much easier when I write.Sometimes I had a hard time keeping the family at bay so I could keep focused on the Hero and Heroine. It's much more fun to write about someone else getting pecked at than getting pecked at myself. Of course Thorne and Langdon were much gentler than my oldest brother ever was. Although I must say, he has mellowed some.

SUSAN: Now I get it. Being an only child, I have trouble developing larger families.

DIANE: Susan, PRIMAL OBSESSION is a wow! It's like getting grabbed by the throat and pulled into the book. From what I know of serial killers yours is just spot on. A person who walks among us seeming very normal. This character fascinates me and how he his actions affect everyone in the story from the mother of a victim, to the heroine the reporter, her brother the cop and each and everyone on the expedition. Where did you come up with this monster?

SUSAN: Creating the Hunter was a long process. I’ve always been fascinated by serial killers and their pathology. My husband shudders when he sees me reading about them. He hopes I’ve satisfied my fascination by writing the Hunter’s story. Maybe. Maybe not. LOL. Some of the Hunter came from research about serial killers, about the typical childhood dysfunctional behaviors, some innate due to the sociopath personality and others triggered by mistreatment or perceived mistreatment. Then for the story I needed him to behave certain ways, like the dirty tricks he plays on the camping group when he’s just teasing them. So I have to admit my overactive imagination created some of his twistedness, if that’s a word. LOL.

DIANE: You did a great job.

SUSAN: Thanks. I'm thrilled you liked the book. But about SCANDALOUS, the young couple are forced to marry because of a minor incident that could erupt into a scandal ruining the heroine. Adam has the reputation of being a rake, so Elizabeth distrusts him, plus she has major secrets. You’ve given them big conflicts to overcome and yet it’s a tender, developing love story. Tell me about creating your yummy hero, Adam.

DIANE: Fun loving, that was my criteria for Adam when I first thought of him. He's an only child with a powerful wealthy father so he's had pretty much everything he wanted in his life. The only loss in his life is a mother he can't remember. He's never really craved brothers and sisters because of the large extended family around him, aunts, uncles and cousins. He's never had to face much adversity, until now. He turned out fairly immature for a man of his age.
But let's get back to PRIMAL OBSESSION's characters. Annie is journalist that gave the serial killer the name Hunter after she uncovered that the Hunter killed her friend Emma. With the prodding of her brothers she's on her way into wilderness to escape the Hunter's obsession which has turned her. Where in your psyche did she come from?

SUSAN: Who knows? I needed to make her investigation personal to make it more emotional. So having one of the victims be her friend achieved that. Much of the nature-phobia came from me personally. A few years ago, the dh and I went on a similar canoe-camping trip with a Maine Guide. Ours was also six people, paddling 10-13 miles a day, camping in tents, and sharing chores, but we had no killer shadowing us, thank goodness. The trip was a challenge for me. I’m no athlete and no outdoorswoman, but I’d always wanted to experience the “real” Maine, so when I’d heard an eighty-year-old man did the trip the year before, I had to go. My husband was really supportive, partly because he wanted to go too. I extrapolated on my own fears to create Annie. Then I had more plotting to do to create her romantic conflict about pro athletes.
You had to do much the same for Elizabeth’s romantic conflict, though. She is suspicious of Adam’s fidelity in their marriage, one of her internal conflicts. How did you work that in?

DIANE: Elizabeth's experience with men is tarnished with a drunken gambler for a father, an uncle who has apparently abandoned her family and another uncle who keeps a mistress. Knowing Adam's reputation for being a rake and that he is being forced to wed her, she deduces that he has no loyalty to her. His announcement that he plans to go on an extended sea voyage without her merely reinforces her conclusions.
Ok, now we get to Sam. Former Red Sox, bohunk. But he has his own crosses to bear. An injury that ended his baseball career which leaves him with self worth issues. How did you come up with these intriguing attributes to this oh so delicious man?

SUSAN: While I was beginning the book, the dh and I watched a lot of Red Sox ball that spring, the spring before the canoe trip. I came up with Annie first, so I needed a hero who would, at first impression, be the absolute worst man for her, for a woman dead set against pro athletes because of a bad experience. But why would a pro jock be guiding a canoe trip in Maine? I just kept asking what if until I had Sam.
In SCANDALOUS, you devise twists and turns to the plot that led to one disaster after another. Do you plot your stories in advance like I do, or are you one of those pantsers who just let the muse lead you?

DIANE: I plot, but generally speaking the muse grabs me and tugs me in another direction and I'm not very disciplined about following my outline. Once the muse drags me away, it can be very difficult to get back to where I planned to be. In the end I get half plot and half mused story. Perhaps sometimes half-baked. In this case their secrets cause most of their troubles, but we all have our secrets.

SUSAN: Diane, what you say sounds a lot like my process. I plot but I never know where the story needs to go until I get deep into it and into the characters. Half-baked is right. And secrets are good. I remember reading something Sandra Brown once said, that all your characters should have secrets, not just the main characters.
What plans do you have for your book? Do you have any appearances scheduled?

DIANE: Right now our family is in the middle of a disaster. My sister-in-law and brother-in-law were in a horrific car accident, so the appearances I had planned I postponed indefinitely until at least they're able to come home. What do you have going for PRIMAL OBSESSION?

SUSAN: That’s terrible. To have your family members in a disastrous accident must take you instantly back to the car accident you had a few years ago. But the book and what you can do with it will be there whenever you can get to it. As for me, I have two appearances scheduled, at conferences. First on March 28, at the New England RWA Chapter Conference, at the Sheraton in Framingham, Massachusetts. Then at the RWA Conference in July in Washington, D.C. I’ll be posting those on my website.
Chatting about our books this way has been a blast. Best of luck to you with SCANDALOUS and future books. You all out there, go buy this fabulous book! Visit Diane at http://www.dianedrew.net.

DIANE: Thank you Susan. PRIMAL OBSESSION is the best suspense thriller I've read in ages. Anyone who opens the first page is going to be hooked. Best of luck to you, too.