Tell us about The Shattered Door.
When publicist Kathleen Harrison is executed in her suburban home, the obvious suspect is her client and lover George Wynton, a known telepath. Boston attorney Dan Stevens is hired to defend George, but he has no use for telepaths, and so hands the investigative reins to Morrison Investigations.

Fledgling private investigators Darcy and Olivia Morrison reluctantly agree to help Dan with the case. They recognize how invaluable the experience of working the high-profile case will be, but know it increases the risk of their secret being revealed. Once they accept the challenge, there will be no turning back, no matter how great the stakes.

From Commonwealth Avenue to the Back Bay, The Shattered Door sweeps readers down into an underworld born from fear and bigotry, and up into the lives of Boston’s elite class where the real darkness lies.

What genre is it?
The Shattered Door is a paranormal mystery.

What kind of readers will it appeal to?
Readers who like the wit of Stephanie Plum will love Darcy. Readers who like Clean, by Alex Hughes will enjoy the different spin I put on my paranormal investigators.

Complete this sentence for us: If you like _________, you’ll love The Shattered Door.
If you like fast-paced mysteries with bright young women detectives, you’ll love The Shattered Door.

It is easy to draw parallels between the persecution telepaths face in The Shattered Door and the persecution of ethnic and cultural minorities that goes on around the world today. Were you trying to make a statement or did you just concentrate on writing a great story?
I kept the statement in the back of my mind, but I focused on telling the story. I did this for two reasons. First, I think readers hate being bludgeoned by any message – it takes away from their enjoyment of the story. Second, readers are smart people who will not only come away with the theme of the book, but they will filter it through their own experiences, making it a more personal experience for them.

Will you be revisiting this world you have created in future books? Will we be seeing more of Olivia and Darcy?
We’ll be seeing a lot more of them. I plan to have Book 2 (which is still unnamed) published in December. Book 3 is plotted out on sticky notes attached to a display board like kids use for science fairs. The series is open-ended and I plan to write in this world for a long time to come.

How do you choose names for your characters, and how much is a character subsequently shaped by the name you have given them?
I choose names by gut instinct. As long as the name seems right to me, I go with it. My characters’ names serve more to remind me of their attributes, rather than form them.

You have talked elsewhere about the many distractions writers face, from young children to the television and the Internet. How do you cope?
My overall philosophy is to do my best and try to be kind to myself. I can waste a whole day being upset and distracted about not having written anything the previous day and that just builds up into a big ugly mess in my head, so I just let it go.

I also show up to work every day. My office is in my house, so that makes it both easy and hard. Easy to sit at my desk, hard to focus with kids doing a million things at once. Just the act of showing up every day means some work gets done.

I close my door when I really need to concentrate, and the kids know they should go see their father (who also works from home).

Writing a book is never easy, but other than that, what has been the toughest part – editing or marketing?
Editing is by far the hardest for me. Although I’m fairly shy and introverted in public, I find that I really thrive with online marketing. I’m taking those successes and bolstering up my public persona. I’ll never be an extrovert, but I will conquer my shyness.

Tell us a bit about yourself.
My life is full of family and noise and games. I homeschool my four children (although they mostly work independently at this point), my husband works from home and I write in my home office, so we’re all home all the time. My husband and kids play Cosmic Encounters (a board game from the husband’s misspent youth) almost every lunch time.

Have you got a blog where readers can keep up with your work?
My personal site is called Writing and Kids: No rest for the wicked, not even the extremely wicked.

I also have a site dedicated to the Morrison Investigations series, Morrison-Investigations.com.

Where can we buy The Shattered Door?
I have tried to make the book available to as many people as possible, so you can find it at:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
Smashwords
iTunes bookstore.

What’s next?
I’ve talked a bit about continuing this series, and I have many other novels I’d like to write, or finish writing. All these titles are more ‘code names’ as I hate coming up with titles, but some novels you can look forward to are:

The Waste: a post-apocalyptic South American novel (will require research and travel – yay!)

Steampunk President: President John Tyler was the first to assume the presidency after the death of a sitting president. Who knew he was also a scientific genius?

Haunted cozies: I have a series in mind, with one novel half-written, dealing with a haunted yarn shop in the mountains of New Hampshire.