16. Deadly Deals

by Fern Michaels

  FERN MICHAELS: When I was a kid my old Polish grandmother said something to me that I didn't understand at the time but do understand now. She said when God is good to you, you must give back. I do my best. A day doesn't go by in my life that I don't thank God for all He has done for me. How could I do less? I have a new project right now, which is our local police department in the town where I live. With the passing of my daughter due to a heart condition way before her time several years ago, I wanted to do something in her memory. So I made sure every officer in the department had a defibrillator and was trained to use it, a thermal-imaging camera, plus every officer now has a taser, along with training and hiring a new police officer every year to help safeguard the people in my little town.

  QUESTION: With the publication of several books a year, along with your ongoing charity work, how do you manage to balance writing, home, family, and book events with all this going on in your career and life?

  FERN MICHAELS: I don't know how to answer that other than to say I take it one day at a time, look at what the day holds when I get up in the morning, and put things in the order of importance. Somehow or other I manage to do what has to be done, even if it takes me till bedtime. My kids tell me I have grease on my sneakers, otherwise I wouldn't be able to do what I do. I love it.

  QUESTION: Where do you draw your inspiration from? Are there any specific people--friends, family members, etc.--that help provide the characters found in your novels?

  FERN MICHAELS: Just everyday life. I think my brain is on overdrive from eight in the morning till around midnight. I hear, I see, I smell, I think, and I write it down. Sometimes it can be something really silly. Like the day I was babysitting my grandson and he was watching cartoons and it was Alvin and the Chipmunks and they were shouting, "Finders keepers! Finders keepers!" I had been struggling for a title on the book I was writing at the time. You guessed it--turned out to be Finders Keepers.

  QUESTION: Throughout all of the years you've been writing and promoting your novels, what have been the most rewarding and memorable experiences for you?

  FERN MICHAELS: Oh my gosh, there are so many! I'm going to give you two, but they are sad. A lady's daughter e-mailed me and said her mother was dying, literally dying, and had maybe a month to live if she was lucky. She had read the first two books in the Kentucky series and wanted to know how the third one ended because she wouldn't be here when it came out. The third book was done and in production, but there were months to go before it would be in stores. I called my publisher, Kensington Publishing, and somehow they found a way to get the advance galleys to me to send to the daughter. The daughter e-mailed me later and said every day she read to her mother and they finished the book in time. The second incident was almost identical, but this lady was a friend of someone who had brain cancer and was in a hospice. She wanted the fourth Sisterhood book [The Jury] so her friend could read it to her. I sent it along with a roomful of flowers. You just can't forget things like that, ever. And I never will. I like to think I make people's lives a little happier with my storytelling. Now, if you want to go in the other direction, I was inducted into the New Jersey Literary Hall of Fame along with such notables as Mary Higgins Clark, Peter Benchley, Belva Plain, and many others (I lived in New Jersey at the time), and you better believe that was a thrill!

  QUESTION: Now that the Sisterhood is still going strong and topping the bestseller lists with every book, what is the next thing you can tell readers that you're excited about? What will 2010 and beyond bring?

  FERN MICHAELS: I'm sure not ready as of this moment to put the Sisterhood series behind me, but I do have other things I'm excited about. Especially my brand-new series called the Godmothers. Again, some feisty ladies, led by eight-times-widowed Teresa "Toots" Amelia Loudenberry, getting their way in the world and having a lot of great times while they're at it. I think these books are even more fun than the Sisterhood books, and I hope my readers find them just as entertaining. The first book is The Scoop, in September 2009, and then I have another non-Sisterhood novel called Return to Sender coming in the spring of 2010. So I'm working on all kinds of things, but in my off-hours, my brain is swirling with Sisterhood stories. I can multitask.

  ZEBRA BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright (c) 2009 by Fern Michaels

  Fern Michaels is a Registered Trademark of First Draft, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Zebra and the Z logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4201-1808-7

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue