Hi all! Over on Instagram, I’ve started a video diary from day ONE of plotting and writing my 2025 suspense. I haven’t pitched this story to my publisher yet, so it could all fall apart, but that’s part of the fun, right? The working title for now is Bald-Faced Liar. Follow along with #VHStone2025 on Instagram! Or get links to the videos on Threads! Hope to see you there.
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I recently wrote an essay for the wonderful CrimeReads site about my experience moving from writing romance to writing suspense. It’s been such a treat to stretch my wings and hone new skills in an unfamiliar genre. But it wasn’t quite as unfamiliar as you’d think.
“Love stories and scary stories are opposites for a reason: They’re flip sides of the same coin. They each tap into the most basic human drives: to survive and to mate.”
I don’t have a good story about the first inappropriate book I read at too young an age. There were so many books around my house from so many genres, I couldn’t even tell you what kind of inappropriate it might have been. It was probably a steamy historical romance, but it could just as easily have been a Stephen King novel or an intense Dean Koontz thriller clutched in my twelve-year-old hands at 1 AM on a school night. My mom loved reading both horror and romance, so I had plenty of access to both…