Denise Grover Swank on Writing the First Book, Rose Gardner, and New Mysteries!

Denise Grover Swank joins us to share with Fresh Fiction her journey into publishing her first book and what we can look forward in 2016!

Jen: Hi, Denise! Welcome to Fresh Fiction. We're thrilled to have you join us. Can you share with us how you got into writing and publishing?

Denise: I started writing my first book when I was in fourth grade. It was the first in a long line of unfinished books. It wasn’t until 2009 when I heard about NaNoWriMo that I became serious about getting published. NaNoWriMo inspired and encouraged me to complete my first novel. I’ve written twenty more since.

Jen: That's incredible. Your Rose Gardner mystery series has proved so popular that the first three in the series are now being issued in hardcover. Why do you think readers connect to Rose and why is she special to you?

Denise: I think everyone has a little bit of Rose in them. Everyone wants to live their lives to the fullest but fear holds them back. They want to find people who make them feel loved and needed. I think readers relate to the highs and lows of Rose’s continued journey to discover herself, even when she makes mistakes along the way, maybe even because of her mistakes. Rose isn’t perfect. Maybe that makes her more real.

There’s a lot of me in Rose, in the beginning books anyway. When I wrote TWENTY-EIGHT AND A HALF WISHES I had been recently widowed and felt like I was starting my life all over again. It was a scary place to be. I think readers relate to that, too. I get a lot of email and messages from readers who think of her as a friend. That’s a huge compliment.

Jen: The Rose Gardner series combines many different genres. Was that a conscious decision or did the story and Rose’s character create this unique blend?

Denise: Ha! It definitely was not a conscious decision. I think Rose is a perfect example of, “write from your heart and readers will relate to it.” The idea for TWENTY-EIGHT AND A HALF WISHES came out of nowhere. It wasn’t until I was nearly finished writing the book that it occurred to me it was a mashup of multiple genres. Which, I’m sure, is why most agents were never interested in it. But my beta readers loved the book so much they wouldn’t let it languish on my computer hard drive. They insisted the world needed Rose.

Jen: You also write YA novels. Do you approach writing for YA differently than when you write for an adult audience?

Denise: I always approach a story by getting into the heads of the characters. A teenager is going to relate to an experience in a completely different way than an adult. (Usually. Ha!) Of course there are genre expectations, but I’m firmly in the character’s head. In my upcoming YA contemporary romance with Blink, ONE PARIS SUMMER, Sophie feels abandoned by her father and resents being forced to spend the summer with him in Paris. So I think about my own daughters, currently ages eighteen and twelve. How would they react? One would internalize her feelings while the other would express them--but how would she express them? Her feelings are so much more amplified than an adult’s. In TWENTY-EIGHT AND A HALF WISHES, Rose was emotionally stunted, so she reacted to her situation differently than a worldlier twenty-four year old would have handled it.

Jen: Which authors have you been reading lately? What book are you currently reading?

Denise: I am a very eclectic reader. The last three books I read were, Hunter’s Trail, an urban fantasy by Melissa Olsen; ISLA AND THE HAPPILY EVER AFTER, a YA romance by Stephanie Perkins; and THE WITCH OF LITTLE ITALY, a women’s fiction by Suzanne Palmieri. I’m currently reading Malevolent, a thriller, by Jana DeLeon.

Jen: You’ve produced such a huge body of work in such a short time. What’s next on the horizon for you?

Denise: I expect 2016 to be a year of new beginnings. I’m excited to start a new mystery series set in Tennessee that will have the same tone and flavor of my Rose Gardner mystery series, and also I plan to release The Love Jinx, a rom com series that will be a spinoff of my The Wedding Pact series. I have so many ideas and not enough time to write them all!

Jen: Thank you so much for joining us!

About Denise Grover Swank

Denise Grover Swank is the bestselling author of TWENTY-EIGHT AND A HALF WISHES, TWENTY-NINE AND A HALF REASONS, and THIRTY AND A HALF EXCUSES, (from her Rose Gardner series), which launch in hardcover in August-October, 2015 from Crooked Lane Books. She is also the author of 20 additional genre novels, including mystery, urban fantasy, new adult, and contemporary romance.

Denise wrote since a child and always wanted to be an author. After the loss of her husband in 2006, she turned this lifelong dream into a reality, providing for her family and establishing a successful career. Her other series include The Chosen, On the Otherside, The Curse Keepers, and Off the Subject. Denise lives in Lee’s Summit, MO with her six children and dogs. For more, visit denisegroverswank.com

Website | Facebook | Twitter

About TWENTY-EIGHT AND A HALF WISHES

For Rose Gardner, working at the DMV on a Friday afternoon is bad even before she sees a vision of herself dead. She’s had plenty of visions, usually boring ones like someone’s toilet’s overflowed, but she’s never seen one of herself before. When her overbearing momma winds up murdered on her sofa instead, two things are certain: There isn't enough hydrogen peroxide in the state of Arkansas to get that stain out, and Rose is the prime suspect.

Rose realizes she’s wasted twenty-four years of living and makes a list on the back of a Wal-Mart receipt: twenty-eight things she wants to accomplish before her vision comes true. She’s well on her way with the help of her next door neighbor Joe, who has no trouble teaching Rose the rules of drinking, but won’t help with number fifteen-- do more with a man. Joe’s new to town, but it doesn’t take a vision for Rose to realize he’s got plenty secrets of his own.

Somebody thinks Rose has something they want and they’ll do anything to get it. Her house is broken into, someone else she knows is murdered, and suddenly, dying a virgin in the Fenton County jail isn’t her biggest worry after all.