Signing Books with Mary Higgins Clark! #CapeCod Art, Word + #Wine Event

In one week, I’ll get to meet one of my idols—Mary Higgins Clark, the “Queen of Suspense”—and, in a dream come true, I’ll actually be sitting on an author panel with her!  The two of us are part of the nine-author panel at Art, Word, and Wine, a charity event to raise money for Dream Day on Cape Cod.  The panel includes other well-known authors such as Hank Phillipi Ryan, Sally Gunning, and Jacquelyn Mitchard, so to say I’m honored to be in such company is an understatement. 

I’ve always been a voracious reader, and throughout my childhood, my father would bring home stacks of library books each week, selected with the help of the local librarian.  That’s how I discovered a ghost story/sweet romance entitled Jane-Emily, a novel which inspired my own books many years later.  But when I would inevitably finish all the library books in a few days, I’d turn to raiding my mother’s bookcase.  And that’s how I first discovered Mary Higgins Clark’s debut novel, Where Are The Children?

I can still remember my pulse racing as I tore through the pages.  I quickly hunted down the two other paperbacks we owned, A Stranger is Watching and The Cradle Will Fall.  Over the years, I read all three over many times in between waiting for new releases.  And before I began writing my debut novel, Silver Lake, I re-read Where Are The Children? as a lesson on building tension and suspense.  I was surprised to discover the book was set on Cape Cod, a place which meant little to me as a child, but has now become my home for the last 18 years and serves as a setting for Gull Harbor and Haunted Souls.

And now I’m one of the “great Cape Cod authors” who will be signing books at Art, Word, and Wine!  The event will be held at the Cape Cod Museum of Art on Tuesday, August 30^th, from 4 pm to 7 pm.  The $20 admission goes to a fantastic charity that brings children with life-threatening illness to the Cape.  So if you’re in the area, come meet some famous authors, find some new reads, and enjoy wine, cheese and crackers, and artwork in a beautiful setting, all while helping Dream Day on Cape Cod achieve its mission.