Jayne Asks Elizabeth the Oldest Writing Question in the Universe

(If you're wondering where your comments went, ask Elizabeth, aka the fastest fingers in the West. Fair warning, she may just growl at you --Cissy, aka long-suffering webgoddess)

Jayne: I'm a huge fan so I'll just gush a little first. ALWAYS TIME TO DIE is my favorite kind of story -- stone-cold suspense and sizzling love. The genealogy background was absolutely fascinating, by the way, so I'm going to ask the traditional reader question (but you gotta promise not to hit me). Where did you get the idea?

Elizabeth: Sure I can’t hit you? I’d be gentle. Really.

Jayne: Get over it. What inspires you is the first thing people want to know you about your books.

Elizabeth: Basically, I’m a science freak. I read non-fiction to relax. I've been fascinated by DNA since scientists began using it to trace the most probable geographic source of homo sapiens. When I started looking into mtDNA—the part you get only from your mother—the possibilities for rattling skeletons in family closets were just too delicious not to pursue. Same for Y-DNA, which you get only from your father.

In other words, if your mtDNA doesn’t match your mother’s she isn’t your biological mother. Ditto for dad.

No matter what they told you and each other.

Jayne: Sheesh. Makes you wonder why people want to know about personal genealogy in the first place.

Elizabeth: Exactly. Just keep in mind that your ancestors were people too. Their lives weren't lived just to be certain that YOU someday would be born. If it would upset you to find out that the people whose genes you carry weren't saints and 1,000% upright citizens, then don't go asking questions.

Jayne: But your heroine, Carly, asks those kind of questions for a living.

Elizabeth: In ALWAYS TIME TO DIE, Carly finds the kind of answers worth killing to hide. Fortunately she also finds Dan Duran, a man haunted by the past. A man who already knows about wrong questions, lethal answers, local people, and the kind of history which is told only in silence.

When Dan can’t talk Carly out of pursuing the Quintrell family history, he joins her on what becomes a deadly quest for truth. Together they learn that nothing is what it first appears, including each other.

And at the end of fear and death, lies and truth, they find what neither of them was looking for—love.

Jayne: Great answer; great book! Nobody does romantic-suspense like you do, Liz.

Elizabeth: Liz? Liz? Did you just call me Liz?

Jayne: What? You prefer Betty? Betsy? Here, have a nice cup of tea while I tell everyone that ALWAYS TIME TO DIE is now out in paperback. Readers should run, not walk to the nearest bookstore or click on one of the handy-dandy links below.

Elizabeth: Hmm. Betsy Lowell. Well, I suppose it has possibilities...if I were writing mysteries solved by cats.