Can you share some examples of how your faith impacts your storytelling?
For me there is always hope in Christ. So the struggle is to write the hard things, the hurtful things that life is full of, but finish them with hope, with the light of Christ, without being preachy or clichéd.
For Tess, she walked away from her faith after her father’s murder. That’s not surprising, but I wanted to draw her journey back in a believable and entertaining way.
What can you tell us about the main characters in this book?
Tess O’Rourke is the daughter of a police officer who was killed in the line of duty. Her dream was to eventually become chief of police for Long Beach. But the shooting changes everything. And when she leaves to work in small-town Rogue’s Hollow, many think that going to a tiny department was the same as retiring.
But Tess still has a lot of passion for her job, and she can only give 110-percent, no matter the size of the department.
Are your characters based on real people, or do you make them up?
I make them up. They might be a conglomerate of people I know, but I never consciously, specifically, draw a character after someone I know.
On the next page, Janice reveals the Christian authors who influenced her the most as a writer…