Connie: Hello and welcome, Susan! I’m very glad you could be here. I’ve been looking forward to chatting with you and learning more about you and your writing and most definitely Andy and Cissy. But first things first. Tell me a bit about yourself and what you’re working on now.

Susan: Hi, Connie. Thanks for the warm welcome. Let’s see, I’m a graduate of the School of Journalism at the University of Kansas where I majored in Public Relations (which comes in handy as a writer these days). I grew up all over the place, as my dad worked for IBM and was transferred every 2-3 years. I guess that makes me a mutt. I’ve always loved reading, and I think writing’s in my blood. I’ve been cooking up stories and novels since I was a kid. Right now, as the third Debutante Dropout Mystery hits bookstores (The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club), I’m finishing up the fourth in the series, Night Of The Living Deb. I’m a wee bit behind deadline so I’ve gotta write faster!

Connie: Faster is good, more books that way!

Tell me about the Debutante Dropout mystery series. Where did the idea for this series come from?

Susan: I love these Deb Dropout Mysteries, as they feature a thirty-year-old web designer named Andrea "Andy" Kendricks who comes from a background of privilege in Dallas, Texas. Her mother, a dyed-in-the-wool Chanel-wearing socialite, had big plans for Andy: that she graduate from prep school, make her debut, head to an Ivy League school (or at least a good Texas university), pledge the best sorority, marry a Blue Blood and bear blue-blooded children. Only Andy had other things in mind. She refuses to debut after her father dies suddenly, goes to a small art school in the Midwest, and returns to Dallas to do pro bono web design work for local charities. The mother-daughter relationship is key in these books, and it’s fun for me to show how these women can be polar opposites yet love each other to pieces.

The idea for the series came from my pledging Pi Beta Phi at the University of Texas in Austin (where I went before transferring to KU). There were a number of Dallas debutantes in my pledge class, and I would watch them practice their curtsies in study hall. I’d also listen to them talk about their very spoiled lives, and how they’d picked out their future husbands at the very first frat party mixer; many years down the road, I realized I wanted to write about a girl who could’ve been what those girls were but chose instead to carve her own path in life. Thus, Andy Kendricks, the debutante dropout, was born.

Connie: It sounds like you got a lot of "what ifs" material from your pledge class.

What goes into pitching/proposing a series such as this? What’s the process?

Susan: Well, I wrote Blue Blood well before anyone knew what a "chick lit mystery" was, which is why it ended up on my shelf, gathering dust, for six or seven years. I had two books published by a small press before I signed with the agent who pitched BLUE BLOOD to NY editors and sold it to HarperCollins/Avon. At the time, she touted it as "THE NANNY DIARIES meets Janet Evanovich." Chick lit was hot, and Kate White’s Bailey Weggens books were selling well, so it was a matter of good timing. I’m with a different agent now who has secured a second contract for Books Four and Five with Avon, so I’m a very happy camper.

Connie: When you begin each book, let’s say, The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club, do you know who did it and all the details? Or do the characters take you on twists and turns you hadn’t planned on? Did you know, you know who (don’t want to give it away) did it?

Susan: I’m not an outliner, which means I pretty much have the general story in my head from the start. I do know who the victim and the killer are, and I often know the motive for the murder (though this gets tweaked as I go along). I scribble notes to myself about certain key events I need to tell a particular tale, but I don’t know details. That’s what I find out as I begin to write, and, yes, characters will surprise me. Sometimes I realize a scene doesn’t feel right, and it’s because I’m forcing a character to act in a way he or she wouldn’t. You can’t know what that’ll be until you get there, if that makes sense. The fun of writing a novel for me is going along for the ride, pretty sure of where I’m headed but not certain what precise route I’ll take to get there. For someone who’s a perfectionist, you’d think I’d be an outliner, but I just can’t work that way.

Connie: And when deciding, "who did it", what’s your thought process like? What makes you pick that particular person?

Susan: I’m not really sure. I’m lucky in that, when I come up with a basic premise for a novel, the other parts start falling into place. My unconscious gnaws on it for awhile, generally while I’m doing something else; so that, by the time I get down to write that particular book, I just *know* things, like who, what, where, when, how and why. It’s a little like magic.

Connie: Do you have a timeline or chart that you go by to know when another piece to the puzzle should be found of fit into place? How do you time it so the clues aren’t revealed before they should be?

Susan: I keep a timeline in my head, purely of the progression of the story and what day it is. I don’t lay down clues according to any of that. The pieces of the puzzle come along the way, as I’m telling the story, and they can be revealed through dialogue, a character’s actions, and through physical evidence. As noted above, I’m not an outliner, and I don’t know how the path of the story will lay down until I write it. That goes for clues and red herrings, too.

Connie: Well, whatever your magic is, it works!

Susan, tell me about Andy and her mom Cissy. There seems to be an understanding/misunderstanding mother-daughter relationship going on with them. It’s very fun and at times poignant to watch as they get caught up each situation and the clues and as scenes reveal more to Andy than she realized about her mom.

Susan: What’s funny is that my mother and I are very close, and she’s nothing like Cissy (I get asked if she’s Cissy a lot!). I love the dynamics of the mom-kid relationship because it’s ever-changing. The way we see our parents changes so much as we get older; though, often, the way they see us doesn’t change much at all. I mean, we’ll always be somebody’s baby, right? That’s how it is with Andy and Cissy. Cissy has trouble accepting that Andy has struck out her own path in life instead of following in Cissy’s footsteps, and Andy wishes her mother would respect the choices she’s made. But, you know, the same can be said in reverse, and Andy’s learning to respect her mother for how she conducts her life and the good she actually does for people (beyond the superficial). They’re clearly Mutt and Jeff: very different, often at odds, but with a deep, deep love for one another. Cissy is so much more than I’d originally imagined. Her character has just come alive in these books, as there’s so much more behind her façade of the perfectly coiffed and dressed Dallas society maven. She always surprises me, and I hope she surprises readers, too. I think she gets more fan mail than Andy!

Connie: I understand why Cissy would get the mail. There’s a certain something about her that captures the attention.

In Blue Blood, Andy’s debut, Cissy didn’t get nearly as involved as she did in The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club. Will she be featured as prominently in future books?

Susan: No, Blue Blood was the first book in the series, so it was really Andy’s book. It’s funny that Lonely Hearts is being called "Cissy’s book," because Andy is still the narrator so nothing happens without her being there. But Cissy is definitely on center-stage. I had a lot of folks email after Blue Blood and The Good Girls Guide to Murder , wanting "more Cissy, please." So that’s what they got in The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club . It was a natural progression. The fourth book, Night Of The Living Deb, is Andy’s book again, though much of the focus is on her relationship with Brian Malone, the lawyer who defends Molly O’Brien in Blue Blood and Andy’s recurring love interest.

Connie: Will the life of the Debutante series be extended past what is currently contracted? (We hope!)

Susan: I’m sure there will be more in the series beyond Books Four and Five, as the fifth is due at year’s end. Thankfully, all the books are doing very well, so I’m sure the Debutante Dropout will live to tell many more tales!

Connie: Would you talk a minute about your Maggie Ryan series? The first one, And The She Was Gone, was published in 1999 and the second, Overkill, in 2001. This series is very intense and totally the opposite of the Debutante series, is it not?

Susan: I wrote And The She Was Gone when I was 29, and it wasn’t published until five years later, in 1999, as the prize for my winning a fiction contest sponsored by a small press in Illinois. It was my first published novel and went into a second printing, then Overkill followed a few years later. I am lucky to have garnered critical praise and positive feedback from readers for these books, which are very dark whereas the Deb books are much lighter. I love using my literary muscles to write such disparate types of stories, and I have finished a third Maggie Ryan book called Walk Into Silence, which my agent has recently begun to market. So I’m crossing my fingers. My dream is to write both light and dark, so one can only hope!

Connie: Are there any more Maggie Ryan books in the works after Walk Into Silence?

Susan: I’d love to write another, if things work out with Walk Into Silence. So light a candle for me, Connie! I also have ideas galore for stand-alones, so we’ll see what happens. The future looks pretty bright from where I’m sitting.

Connie: I hope each idea is a success, Susan!

On to a different direction now so I can get to know you a bit better. Thinking back, what was your favorite book(s) or author(s) as a child/teen? Do you remember why it/they were a favorite?

Susan: I was a voracious reader as a kid, and I ordered as many books as allowable from the Scholastic Book Club, haunted my local library, and accumulated a set of yellow-spined Nancy Drews from the 1970s. I loved mysteries, like Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown. One of my favorite books from childhood is Johnny Tremain, an historical novel set in Boston, featuring the Sons of Liberty and the events leading up to the Revolutionary War. I loved Judy Blume, the Black Stallion books, Island Of The Blue Dolphins, Ring Of Bright Water, lots of things.

Connie: I absolutely loved and lived for the time my teacher would hand out the Scholastic order sheet! My local library was also a favorite place of mine.

What were your favorite and least favorite classes in high school? Why?

Susan: My least favorite classes were math and science, although I did well enough; but my brain just doesn’t like numbers and formulas. My favorites were English, creative writing, and history. Shows how right-brained I am, huh?

Connie: Ok, you’re stranded on a desert island with ­­­­__________ (fictional or real). You send a message in a bottle to be found by anybody. What does the message say?

Susan: Right now, I’d like to be stranded on a desert island with my boyfriend. My message would be, "Send a pitcher of margaritas pronto!"

Connie: And after you’ve been rescued and back in the real world a while which would you prefer, Susan? A weekend in an isolated cabin by the lake or a maid for the day?

Susan: A weekend in an isolated cabin by a lake either with a laptop or my boyfriend. Though, better yet, both.

Connie: Hey, it’s your weekend, both it is.

Our past shapes who we are today. Is there a person or event that was instrumental in the woman you’ve become?

Susan: Oh, gosh, if anyone has affected my life it’s been my wonderful mother and my grandfather (who passed away in the late 1980s). I have never met two more generous, honest, amazing people, and both taught me to be who I am, to treat people kindly, and to pursue my greatest passion. I have followed their advice, which is probably why I’m as happy and fulfilled as I am today.

Connie: On that note I’ll give you my thanks for a wonderful interview. Thanks for taking the time to visit and talk about your book! Before I let you go, however, is there anything I forgot to ask that you’d like the readers and fans to know?

Susan: The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club is out there with a big red foil-embossed heart on the cover…a perfect gift for Valentine’s Day (or any day!). Hope you’ll pick up a copy, so I can get you hooked on the Debutante Dropout. Also, drop by my web site at http://SusanMcBride.com to see what I’m up to. There’s a sweepstakes running in the back of Lonely Hearts (until June 15), and I’ve got information on my LowDown page. Thank you so much, Connie! You are a doll. Take care, everyone, and happy reading!

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