25 Years Ago Today: Mystery and Suspense Author Darcia Helle

I’d like to welcome my good friend, talented mystery/suspense author Darcia Helle. It’s hard to believe that Darcia and I just met a few months ago, through the web site LibraryThing, as she’s one of those rare people it feels as if you’ve known forever. Darcia has five novels published and is at work on number six, and I can tell you that her books are quite addicting. You can’t read just one!

Darcia grew up in Massachusetts, then moved to the Tampa Bay area of Florida in 2002. She is married, has two sons and an adorable new granddaughter. She also has two very spoiled dogs and two equally spoiled cats.

Darcia’s character Nick Donovan, from her novel Miami Snow, has joined us today to answer the question. Nick, what were you doing 25 years ago?

NICK: Twenty-five years ago today, I was sitting in my backyard sandbox with Sara from next door. She was a year older and far more worldly than I. She had these long blonde ringlets that fascinated me. I’d yank them down and they’d spring right back up, sort of like the slinky toys we played with.

Back then, I didn’t know much about the difference between boys and girls. She didn’t like to play with my army men and I thought her Barbie dolls were stupid. But we both loved the sandbox. We’d spend hours together, building castles and roads for the Matchbox cars. I had no doubt that we would grow up and get married, because that’s what boys and girls did.

One day, we kissed in that sandbox. She giggled and ran home. The next day, she decided to play with Jason, the eight-year-old down the street. I kept waiting for her in the sandbox but she never came. The following week, I saw her riding bikes with Jason up and down the sidewalk. She’d gotten rid of her training wheels and was keeping up with him as they pedaled faster than lightning.

That was the moment I realized that I’d lost Sara to Jason. Bored with the sandbox, she’d traded up for the guy with the bike. If I’d paid better attention to that lesson, my adult years might have been spared a lot of grief.

Poor Nick! I hope he is doing better now. To learn more about Darcia and her fantastic list of books, visit her web site and her blog.

Check out Miami Snow on Amazon or browse all her books in my Amazon bookstore.

The characters await you!