The Call of the Redneck

Drumroll please: AND THE WINNER IS..................................MIA ROSE!!!!!!!!
Congratulations, Mia! Please send me an email at
jana (at) janadeleon (dot) com

And I will send your Louisiana prize package out for you to enjoy. Also, in your email, please let me know if you want the autograph personalized. Thanks for reading and coming to our anniversary celebration!


Welcome everyone to the anniversary celebration for Killer Fiction. Can you believe it's been a year already? I can't. Apparently, time flies when you're hanging out with such fabulous people. For our anniversay week, we're all going to share with readers our stories of "the call," and giving out prizes to boot. My prize is a gift bag complete with Louisiana goodies, and a signed copy of RUMBLE ON THE BAYOU and UNLUCKY. All you have to do is post to be entered to win. So you want to know about the call, right? Well, in order to understand my call, you have to understand why I started writing in the first place.

The truth is, I was always writing. I wrote some of my first stories in grade school. But reality sank in and I got into high school and college and off into my career and although I was a voracious reader, the urge to write was never a dominant one. Then one year someone introduced me to Janet Evanovich. A couple of months later my grandmother passed away and I trekked to Louisiana for what would be the final gathering of my mom's family in one place. Now, it had been years and years since I'd seen a lot of my family and even longer since so many had been in the same space. Standing in the cemetary, I looked around and thought "these are the strangest people in the world, and by god, if Evanovich can write crazy characters in New Jersey, why can't I do it in Louisiana?" So I went home and started writing.

Now, I have always been a mystery lover. Started with Trixie Beldon, moved on to Nancy Drew and have the entire collection of THE QUEEN OF ALL MYSTERY WRITERS, Agatha Christie. But I knew there was no way in hell I would ever measure up to Dame Agatha, and I wasn't even about to try. I also had a huge love for the happily ever after. I wasn't actually a big romance reader, but I loved stories that also contained a romance. Life is hard enough. I like my fiction to have a satisfying ending. So I set out to write a romance/mystery hybrid - a genre that didn't quite exist. I knew it would be a hard sell. I knew I was setting myself up for rejection, but that's where my heart was and I didn't feel I could write with the same enthusiasm for anything else.

RUMBLE ON THE BAYOU landed me my ultra-fabulous agent, Kristin Nelson, and I was off to submission hell. And that's when things got hard. You see, if editors had just said "not good enough," I could have kept working and written something better. Instead I got "I love it but don't know what to do with it." It was passed up the line and went to committee at different houses, but the outcome was always the same - we're going to pass. So I asked Kristin what we were going to do. She suggested maybe we should shelve it for now and go back to it later. Get another book out there and see what would happen.

But what was the point, I asked. The second book will be another humorous contemporary romance/mystery hybrid set in southern Louisiana and everyone will be just as scared to take a chance on it as they are on RUMBLE. Then we got the offer from Leah Hultenschmidt at Dorchester. Not only did Leah "get" my voice and style - she loved it. It was a match made in heaven and I couldn't be happier with the enthusiasm and support I get from Leah and Dorchester.

Leah called me at work the afternoon I accepted the offer, and we had a great conversation. I remember her words "I'm so excited to buy this book because for one, it's great and two, it needs no work." (Of course, we're not going to talk about the three page edit letter she sent later on) :)

I couldn't believe it. Not only had I sold the unsaleable novel in the non-existent genre, but Dorchester (in their infinite wisdom) had decided to push an entire line of mystery hybrids, starting with Gemma and Kathleen. I couldn't ask for better company.

Am I the best writer? Heck no. Is my technique where I think it needs to be? Um, I'm going to plead the fifth. But I'll tell you what I DO have that I think makes all the difference in the world.....I entertain people. I make people laugh.

Expect the unexpected is what I shoot for in my books. I like the twists and turns of the mystery as well as the hidden secrets from the character's pasts. I love to entertain and absolutely nothing makes me happier than getting an email from a reader that says I made them laugh. Life is hard. Laughter is the best drug on earth.

In conclusion, I want to leave you with a video of an audition for the show America's Got Talent. The guy plays the trombone and when he walked on stage I thought "god, I hope he's good, b/c trombone........not so interesting." I couldn't have been more wrong. THIS guy knows the value of laughter. THIS guy knows how to entertain. And he was certainly unexpected. Enjoy.



Deadly DeLeon