Vanishing Act (23 page)

QUESTION
:
Razor Sharp
marks the fourteenth book in the Sisterhood series. When you started the series with the first seven books, did you ever think it would become so successful, and you’d still be writing about the Ladies of Pinewood so many years later?

FERN
MICHAELS
: I’ve kept the series going because so many fans wrote and asked me to continue. But even I had withdrawal from the Sisterhood when I finished what I thought was the last one with number seven
[Free Fall]
and had a long break before finally starting to write
Hide and Seek.
I lived with those characters during the first seven books for so long they were part of me. The bottom line was, those wonderful characters were not ready to ride off into the sunset, and I made the decision to continue because there were so many more stories in my head that needed to play out.

QUESTION:
What is it about the characters in your Sisterhood novels that allows for you to connect so deeply with readers, and how did you first conceive of these women on your pages? Is there any thread of you in any of these characters?

FERN
MICHAELS:
I have a lot of friends and meet a lot of people, and as women do, we moan and groan about injustices we see and experience along the way. One would say, boy, if I could just get even in some small way, or, somehow that guy/gal shouldn’t be able to get away with this or that! Then I would sit down and plot all these different revenge theories that maybe would work or maybe wouldn’t, but since it is all fiction, these gals could do whatever, and I could control the outcome. The “sisters” all kept reminding me I was a storyteller. In the end, I was convinced that the woman hadn’t been born yet who didn’t want some sort of revenge in her life. I just ran with it. The seven women of the Sisterhood and the new characters that I developed along the way are composites of those same friends, family, and to some extent some of my neighbors. Even the guys. Is there any thread of me in those characters? Oh yeah! In every single one.

QUESTION:
To the disappointment of many fans,
Final Justice
was going to be the “second end” to the Sisterhood series. But to everyone’s delight, the stories keep coming. When will you decide to end this successful series, and what have the reactions of your fans been?

FERN
MICHAELS:
To end the series after
Final Justice
was my original intention because twelve books is a lot in a series. But…remember now, I am a storyteller and I still have more stories swirling around in my head. When I sent off
Final Justice
to my publisher, I stood at the FedEx place holding the box and felt physically sick. I thought I was going to cry. It was like saying good-bye to a group of my best friends that I was never going to see again. I went home in such a funk I made a pot of coffee and drank it all…black. Then I was so wired up I didn’t know what to do. When I don’t know what to do, I write. I posted a letter to my readers on my website and let it run for ten days. I asked my readers if they wanted me to end the series. I got over three thousand replies. All but twenty-two wanted me to continue it. Of the twenty-two, eleven of them said no only because they thought I wouldn’t write other books. But I assured them that I am still writing non-Sisterhood books, including
Mr. and Miss Anonymous,
the upcoming
Return to Sender,
and of course the Christmas novellas I do for Zebra’s anthologies every year. You know what they say: it isn’t over till the big lady sings.

QUESTION:
While many people know you through your writing, not many people are aware of your charitable work, which includes buying bulletproof vests for police dogs and creating day-care centers set up for the needs of single mothers. You also created the Fern Michaels Foundation, which grants scholarships to needy children. How did you get involved in these projects, and why is philanthropy such an important part of your life?

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 © 2009 by Fern Michaels

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: 978-1-4201-1816-2

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

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Epilogue