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Victoria Helen Stone

bestselling author of emotional suspense

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Are Suspense and Romance So Different?

July 11, 2019 by Victoria

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…

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Filed Under: Half Past Tagged With: Half Past, thrillers, writing

My Own Half Past

October 20, 2017 by Victoria

When I started thinking of my second Victoria Helen Stone book, I knew I wanted to write a family mystery, a story of secrets. I just didn’t know what the secret should be. I puzzled it over for a couple of weeks, and then I had a strange dream: I dreamed that my mother wasn’t my mother.

HALF PAST-smallThe dream felt so odd because my mom is the only parent I’ve ever known. My father left before I was born and I only met him once in my whole childhood. Lots of people don’t know their fathers. Lots of people don’t even know who their fathers are, because men can leave before fertilization even completes. But giving birth isn’t exactly a blink of an eye, so birth mother is generally a fairly secure title. I knew I had a great starting point.

That dream was the start of Half Past, but it wasn’t the inspiration. The inspiration comes from my own life. You see, my childhood was a seemingly endless series of halves. Half-siblings, half-families, half-pasts, and strange half-secrets, known by many and forgotten by more.

Me and my mom
Me and my mom

I grew up in a family of four daughters. I’m the youngest. A whole houseful of women! But I’m also an only child, in terms of psychology. My sisters were five to ten years older, so I grew up differently than they did. I also had a different father as I was the only child of my mom’s second marriage.

I had a half-brother too, but he lived on his father’s farm. I did not know him at all. I had other half-siblings as well, my father’s children with his next wife. I heard about them but did not know them. They did not know about me. Another half family and another and another.

My first halloween with my sisters!
My first halloween with my sisters!

During the school year I lived in a crowded house with sisters I loved who helped raise me, but during the summer they went to live with their father, and I lived with my grandparents. We were sent to the same small town three hours from home, but we did not see each other there, not even on my birthday. We had separate families in homes about ten country miles apart. There were no other children nearby. It was just me on acres of land until the summer ended and I went back to my crowded half-family in the city. It only recently occurred to me how odd this all was.

I didn’t know my father, but I knew my paternal grandparents. I’d visit them and my grandpa would take me around town and introduce me to his friends, but when he died, I went to his funeral and no one knew who I was. I’d somehow become a secret baby despite that both my parents were from this small town of 2000 people. You could never write that in a book. It makes no sense. Who would believe it?

Me with half teeth
Me with half teeth

So the feeling of absolutely loving your family but never quite fitting in…that part of Half Past is all me. My sisters are nothing like the sisters in the book. And my mom and I get along fabulously. There’s not one goody-two-shoes in this whole damn bunch of women! We all have a ton of fun when we get together, I promise.

But I was always different from everyone I loved, if only due to outside forces. I was the only sister with no father and no brother, the only sister with a different last name, the only sister somehow born a secret bastard even though her parents were married. My siblings had uncles and aunts and cousins I’d never met. They visited them at Christmas. But my father was an only child. Half of my Christmas was quiet.

My childhood felt like half of everything except love, but the good news is that meant I could fill in the other parts myself. Perhaps that’s the wellspring of my storytelling. I know it’s why I’m interested in others’ lives. I see secrets everywhere. I want to know the complexity beneath the surface. For me, an unassuming stranger is just someone whose story I haven’t heard yet. If I never get to hear it, I can definitely make one up. But I’ve learned that whatever story I tell probably won’t be as interesting as the truth.

As always, thanks for reading!
Victoria

Try Half Past now!

Filed Under: Half Past Tagged With: Half Past, personal, writing

Solitude in Big Sur: Research for Half Past

October 19, 2017 by Victoria

Half Past takes place in two main locations: a small town in rural Iowa and the coast of Big Sur.

Fruit Juice Barrels

I didn’t have to do any research on the first location. My family is from a tiny farming community in southern Minnesota. I only had to look up a couple of details to get that part right. My biggest disappointment was discovering that Red Owl grocery stores had gone out of business. Our local Red Owl played a big part in my childhood summers. I can still smell the maple doughnuts, and my grandma used to buy me these (now horrifying) drinks. Does this picture trigger nostalgia for anyone else?

But California was a whole other story. I’ve been to developed parts of California (Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco) and even a few secluded beaches (Half Moon Bay), but I’d never been anywhere wild. I knew the wild coasts of California were a whole other world, so I decided to do something I’ve always dreamed of. I decided to rent a cabin and explore someplace new all by myself. After all, this is my decade of trying new things.

The secluded beach Hannah finds in Half Past.
The secluded beach Hannah finds in Half Past.

Big Sur was everything I wanted. As described in the book, it really was a sudden shift from expensive seaside communities to a completely untamed land. It was peaceful and beautiful and picture-perfect, but I had a deep sense of my own frailty while there. Humans haven’t conquered this place. We’ve barely managed to develop small strips of it.

Redwood trees and a stream.
A walk through the redwoods

The bed and breakfast I described in the book doesn’t exist (nor do the people who lived there in the 70’s) but the cabin is as real as I could make it. I stayed at a beautiful roadside resort called Glen Oaks. I can’t recommend it enough. Despite the other nearby cabins and rooms, I felt utterly alone in the best way as I sat next to my fire for hours, writing and drinking wine.

Fire pit, wine, and writing.
Fire pit, wine, and writing.

I spent five days in Big Sur, exploring redwood forests and rocky coasts. I waded into the cold water on a deserted beach and hiked up a hillside stream to see abandoned lime kilns. I slipped through a long tunnel through the cliffs to emerge directly above the surf where ships used to load freight. I stared into that deep water for nearly an hour.

IMG_0646

Everything you’ve heard about the highway is true. Gorgeous and absolutely terrifying. And when I was alone in the trees, I felt truly alone, strong and centered and vulnerable.

I loved every minute of my research in Big Sur. I hope you enjoy the results in Half Past!

p.s. Since my visit, Big Sur has suffered flooding and mudslides that cut off huge parts of the coast. Though most areas are now reachable, the people who live and work there have suffered tremendously. To find out how to help, please visit Big Sur Relief Fund.

Filed Under: Half Past Tagged With: books, Half Past, research, writing

Cutting a New Path

September 12, 2017 by Victoria

So after writing nearly thirty romances, why did I want to write something different? Well, I didn’t. I never even thought about it.

But then a former editor asked me to write something for her. Something that wasn’t romance, because she wasn’t publishing romance. She’d asked me before and I’d said no. I said no again. But this time we were sitting at a table together and she pressed the issue. I squirmed. I told her I didn’t have any ideas for something like that. She insisted I did.

BookExpoSigning2011Small I kept saying no. But by the time I walked away, I was turning the possibility around in my head. What subject would fascinate me enough to keep my interest for 6-12 months? That’s the thing about writing a book. I read lots of different genres. I love horror, romance, historical fiction, narrative non-fiction, thrillers, suspense. But spending a few days reading a book is not the same as spending months writing one story. You have to really want that book. You have to feel it in your bones. I didn’t think I had the bones for anything except romance, but now I was wondering. Now I was plotting.
I knew any story I’d dedicate myself to would have to be female driven. I knew it would have to be dark and complicated. And I knew it would still include sex, if not romance, because that drive is part of any deep dive into someone’s character. (I often say horror & romance are two sides of the same coin: our basic, primal urge to live.)

After brainstorming for a few days, I told my agent I maybe, possibly MIGHT have an idea. She contacted my former editor. The idea wasn’t quite right. I brainstormed again. And this time, the idea caught. We went back and forth a few times. Tweaked some details. And then my editor made an offer for a book unlike anything I’d written before.

And I was terrified. In fact, my editor made a two-book offer and I wanted to negotiate down to one. What if I only had this one idea inside me? This is not how negotiations work. My agent told me to woman up.

So I signed the contract. And I wrote the book. I did it! I wrote Evelyn, After! And once I told my fear to sod off, I had a great time with this story. The best time I’d had in years. I got to write a protagonist who did truly bad things. I got to write a romance that didn’t work out. I got to write the depths of heartbreak and recovery. I loved it. And before I was done, I had an idea for another book. I HAD ANOTHER IDEA!

That second idea was Half Past. It comes out September 19th. Any my third idea is called Jane Doe and comes out next May. (My third idea!) Right now I’m trying to brainstorm a fourth book and facing a tiny little fear that I won’t think of anything. But I know I will. That doubt is just a fading memory of what it used to be.

When I was nearing forty, I started facing my fears and trying new things. At forty-five, I’ve realized that staying afraid takes way too much energy. More energy than I have these days. I haven’t walked away from romance but I am relishing trying something new and terrifying. It’s exciting and I’m enjoying the hell out of it. In fact, maybe it’s another of those primal urges to live.

Next up: That time I tried rock climbing.

Filed Under: Evelyn After Tagged With: books, Evelyn After, romance, writing

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