What inspired you to write Secrets of Their Past?

As the final book in the Wander Canyon series, I wanted a story that said a fitting goodbye to the characters I’ve known and loved. My editor and I were talking through plots, and when one of us hit on redeeming a particular character who has been rather unpleasant throughout the books, we knew we had our story.

What do you love the most about this story?

I’m especially fond of how Neal and Tessa find their way to each other despite such a whopping load of obstacles and consequences. They have no idea how much they need each other…until they do.

What challenged you about writing it?

Secrets—especially big ones—can be hard to write. They need to be revealed with just the right balance of pace and surprise. Neal goes through the story trying to confirm a secret, while Tessa uncovers one she never expected. It was a challenge to weave those two journeys together in a way that changed both their lives.

Which character do you most relate to and why?

Tessa’s struggles as a mother are universal. As our children grow away from us—like they are supposed to—so many doubts and worries creep up. Both my son and daughter are adults living away from home now, and still I fret over the space between calls, read things into emails, and generally “mother” them more than they need. I don’t think there’s a mom on Earth who wouldn’t say the same.

What do you hope readers will take with them after they’ve read it?

I hope readers discover that no secret is so huge and heavy that it can’t survive coming out into the open. We often underestimate God’s ability to take a dark secret and turn it into something healing. I think the story also reminds us how love, even in the face of scorn, can restore a relationship.

What do you enjoy doing when you’re not writing?

For me it is ALWAYS knitting! I’m a devoted knitter, and also write a mass-market cozy mystery series for Berkley called the Riverbank Knitting Mysteries. There is almost as much yarn in my home as there are books—maybe even more!

What inspired you to write The Lake Templeton Murders?

I’ve always loved mysteries that keep me on the edge of my seat. Throughout my life, I’ve been a voracious reader of books that compelled me to keep turning the page. When I decided to become a published author, I knew that’s the kind of book I wanted to write. Murder mysteries are puzzles. I’ve read and watched many that kept me guessing to the very end through an artfully laid clue trail. That’s what I wanted to create.

As a proud immigrant Canadian, I wanted my book to be based in Canada and my characters inspired by the beautiful cultural diversity I see around me every day. Diversity is something I have found lacking in the mystery genre; however, I am pleased to see this has started to change in recent years.

The Lake Templeton Murders is a fast-paced and plot-driven story. My setting – the Canadian Pacific Northwest – is one which I am proud to call home. Vancouver Island, where the story is based, is a frequent vacation destination for me and my husband. Lake Templeton may be fictional, but it’s inspired by the numerous small towns I’ve driven through, that tend to have a unique personality of their own. Life seems simple on the surface, but I often wonder what secrets simmer underneath.

What do you love the most about this story?

Its complexity. There are many layers to my characters. Not all of them are murderers, but they are somehow connected to the web of deceit, which means that for Private Investigator, Fati Rizvi, everyone is a suspect. One of my favorite parts of being a writer is creating complex, multi-layered characters with unique motivations and hidden backgrounds that drive their behaviors. My commitment to diversity goes beyond primary elements, such as culture. I’ve endeavoured to create characters that are individuals, warts and all, like all of us. They lie, they hide, they are flawed, and have broken family relationships. That’s what makes the story interesting.

What challenged you about writing it?

Creating a credible clue trail that makes sense. As a mystery writer, you have to lay subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle breadcrumbs for the reader, like signposts of what’s to come. You have to open threads, some of which ultimately turn out to be red herrings, and not relevant to the problem at hand – who killed the victim?

My challenge was keeping track of all these hidden traps and opened threads and making sure that I bring everything to a satisfactory conclusion at the end. This meant I had to go through several rounds of painful self-editing through a 25-page document of chapter-by-chapter, page-by-page unanswered questions. By the end, I was sick of my own work. And then I handed it to my editor who gave me further edits. By the time the book was published, I didn’t even want to think about Lake Templeton or Private Investigator, Fati Rizvi. Thankfully, this passed when the book was published and I got to hold a copy in my hands.

Which character do you most relate to and why?

I’m closest to my protagonist, Private Investigator, Fati Rizvi, because while writing The Lake Templeton Murders, I had to spend endless hours inside her head. Like me, Fati is a spirited South Asian woman raised in a Muslim household in a religion and culture she never quite identified with. She wants to live life on her own terms. She craves independence and can be slightly obsessive when it comes to her goal, i.e., solving a case. But what I love most about Fati is that she’s persistent. She simply won’t let go. She’s here to solve a murder and she’s not resting until that’s done. And she won’t let anything distract her. As someone who can sometimes be stricken by shiny object syndrome, I admire that.

What do you hope readers will take with them after they’ve read it?

A strong desire to read my next book! I am currently working on my next mystery involving Private Investigator, Fati Rizvi, that I hope to publish by Spring 2022.

What do you enjoy doing when you're not writing?

I love hiking and the outdoors, although athleticism has never been my forte. One of the best parts of living in Vancouver is the abundance of hiking trails and nature paths. There are mountains to explore and ravines to traverse. Sadly, summer is usually a short affair lasting no more than a couple of months. So in the winters, I end up watching too much TV – supernatural horror is my jam– and working through my TBR pile of mysteries. I love discovering new authors.

What inspired you to write KidVenture: Twelve Weeks To Midnight Blue?

My kids are very curious and always asking how things work. Whenever they’d ask about something related to business or economics, I’d create imaginary scenarios where they were the business owner so they could understand better what was going on. For example: why one business would partner with another; why they would chose to sell a product at a loss; why the price of something changes; and so on.

And then one day it occurred to me to write one of these scenarios down as a story. And that’s how KidVenture started. When I was working on the first draft, whenever I told someone I was writing a book for kids to teach them about business, almost always they told me it was a great idea. And something that’s needed. I had a couple of my kids’ homeschooled friends read Twelve Weeks To Midnight Blue and they liked it. That told me I might be on to something.

There aren’t a lot of books out there for kids about being an entrepreneur and running your own business; and yet, it’s something that kids like learning about because they have a sense it’s important. Not everyone is going to grow up to be a farmer or doctor or airline pilot, but knowing how to manage money and negotiate is something most kids understand they should know more about because they see it every day.

What do you hope readers will take with them after they’ve read it?

I hope kids who read Twelve Weeks To Midnight Blue feel inspired to be more entrepreneurial. It doesn’t necessarily mean they start their own little business. It could mean they feel empowered to negotiate, to not reflexively take the first offer they’re given. I noticed that after reading the book with them, my kids started negotiating a whole lot more. Sometimes that would drive me crazy, but even as it did, I was proud of them for advocating for themselves.

KidVenture hopefully teaches kids to be problem solvers and inspires them to learn from experience. The characters in the story have a lot of learning to do, but it’s not book learning. It’s more…adventurous than that. They learn from trial and error. By making offers and counter-offers. By making a decision and then observing what happens. And they learn by talking to customers and picking their brains. It’s the way you learn as an entrepreneur: by doing. And failing. And trying again.

Which character do you most relate to and why?

I had a lot of fun writing this book. I definitely relate to the main character, Chance. He has a sometimes irrational confidence…and the blind spots that comes with that. There’s definitely some of me in him, the way he’s certain something will work because it should. Even when it doesn’t.

One time when I was backpacking with two friends in South America, I marched them to a bus station in Quito, Ecuador at midnight because I was convinced there was a midnight bus to Guayaquil. There wasn’t, so we spent the night in the bus station sleeping on the floor. They had just assumed that, as the Spanish speaker in our group, I had looked up the bus schedule, I seemed so confident we would catch the midnight bus. They were shocked to learn I hadn’t. I had just assumed there would be a midnight bus because, well, there should be.

Chance is at times self-deprecating and funny as he runs into trouble when reality doesn’t quite match his mental map and he has to change course. And he has his moments of empathy, those times he realizes other people are following him blindly to the proverbial bus station, which hopefully make him endearing.

What do you love the most about this story?

I love Chance as a character because he reminds me of what I was like as a kid. But what I really love about the story is the relationship with his parents. Now that I’m a parent, I wanted to write a story that, first of all, my kids could relate to, and second, that was edifying. There are plenty of books and movies about dysfunctional families.

I love that at key junctures in the story, Chance turns to his parents for advice. And their style is very different. The dad in the story is playful and sarcastic and doesn’t just give Chance the answers right away. It’s more like he gives him clues to follow. There is a dynamic where the son at times wants to impress, and even best, his father; and at other times, he turns to his dad for advice when he hits a dead end.

But while there’s a competitiveness to his interactions with his dad, there is a sweetness to Chance’s relationship with his mom. He’s able to be vulnerable with her, so when he he faces an ethical dilemma in the story, he turns to her. And she’s very savvy and gentle in how she asks questions that get Chance talking and reasoning through he solution himself.

What challenged you about writing it?

As the story unfolds, Chance and his sister Addie track how much money their little company is making, what their expenses are, their profit margin, and what each of their share of the business is worth. Interspersed throughout the book are their calculations as they go. So every time I changed the plot, I had to go back and recalculate everything and update all the graphics showing the calculations.

And, much like the entrepreneur in the story, I started writing the book without fully thinking through how the math would work in the end. So I had to tweak some plot elements (how many customers they got and when), to make the business profitable.

What do you enjoy doing when you're not writing?

My kids really like playing soccer and I like coaching their teams. So I spend a fair amount of time running practices, looking up new drills, thinking about lineups and player positions, and obsessing over tactics. It’s a ton of fun. It’s also why in the book Chance is a huge soccer fan and he compares his conversion rate in finding new customers with the success rate of his favorite team scoring goals.

What I love about coaching is that I get to have this alternative lens with which to see my kids. I get to see them not just as their dad, but as their coach. If I can brag a bit, my eight year old daughter, for example, is good at just about every position: striker, midfielder, defender and goalkeeper. So depending on the opponent, I can move her around to where we need the most help. She’s my secret X factor. So during a game, she’s the hero, and in a real sense, I am depending on her. And then the next day we’ll be in church and she’ll be in a cute dress and she’s back to being an eight year old girl and I’ll marvel at how little she is.