SEP Interviews SEP

SUSAN ELIZABETH PHILLIPS INTERVIEWS HERSELF
ABOUT
FIRST STAR I SEE TONIGHT

SEP: Am I mistaken? Didn’t you say that NATURAL BORN CHARMER would be the last of your Chicago Stars books? But now, there’s a new one?
SEP: Have you not yet figured out that I’m totally unreliable?

SEP: Well, yes, I do know that about you, so what happened? How did we get another Stars book?
SEP: Life. The changing of the seasons. The vastness of the universe.

SEP: Could you be a little more specific?
SEP: [Sigh] After setting HEROES ARE MY WEAKNESS—

SEP: I loved that book!
SEP: Thank you. Anyway…After setting HEROES ARE MY WEAKNESS on a remote island off the coast of Maine, I was ready to write a big city book. And big city to me means—

SEP: Chicago.
SEP: Please don’t interrupt. Yes, it means Chicago. I’ve wanted to write a heroine like Piper Dove for a long time—a woman who can shoot, is proficient at martial arts, and is trained in both offensive and defensive driving. All the things I can’t do.

SEP: Not quite true. You’re very good at offensive driving. Emphasis on the offen—
SEP: You’re interrupting again. Piper Dove is the owner of a brand-new detective agency. Her entire future depends on her first big assignment—follow Cooper Graham, the recently retired—and highly competitive–quarterback of the Chicago Stars.

SEP: Knowing how much you love stirring things up, I’m guessing that doesn’t go well.
SEP: You are so right. And it gets even worse when it becomes blindingly clear to Piper that Graham needs a bodyguard.

SEP: Uh-Oh.
SEP: Exactly. No way is a macho character like Graham going along with a bodyguard, especially a female one.

SEP: Are you worried that newer readers will be afraid to pick up FIRST STAR I SEE TONIGHT because they haven’t read the other books in the series?
SEP: [Body-wracking shudder] My worst nightmare. This book is completely free standing.

SEP: Are you saying none of the Chicago Stars characters we’ve come to love will be appearing in FIRST STAR I SEE TONIGHT?
SEP: Wrong. You’ll see Heath Champion again, from MATCH ME IF YOU CAN, as well as a few others. But those characters’ stories are complete in their own books. FIRST STAR I SEE TONIGHT requires NO ADVANCED READING! NONE!

SEP: Stop yelling. We’ve got it! Sheesh… Now, Susan, you’re known for your subplots. I’m assuming…?
SEP: You’re assuming correctly. We’ll be meeting a bevy of Middle Eastern princesses, a Pakistani servant girl yearning for freedom, a Chicago teenager who only wants to fit in, and an elderly neighbor demanding that Piper find her very dead husband.

SEP: I have to say that sounds amazing. [Pause] Super funny and incredibly sexy. [Longer pause] Absolutely phenomenal! [Shouting] I can’t wait to read it!
SEP: You’re pushing it. You wrote the book, remember?

SEP: Work with me. Now before you run off and do whatever it is you do, tell us what you’re working on next. You know we’re all insanely curious.
SEP: And you’ll have to stay that way because I’m not ready to talk about it yet.

SEP: Seriously? You, Miss SEP Blab Everything To The World are going all quiet and mysterious on us?
SEP:A new persona. Now how about tending to business and reminding readers how much they’re going to love FIRST STAR I SEE TONIGHT? Except for up-tight, humorless sourpuss readers. They’ll hate it.

SEP: [Dryly] You do know how to sell a book.
SEP: Gotta go. Oprah’s on the phone.

SEP: Seriously?
SEP: [Snorts] Of course not. FIRST STAR I SEE TONIGHT is many things, but “depressing” is not one of them.

SEP: Silly me.