A couple of weeks ago I asked subscribers to send me the questions they’ve been mentally accumulating since Tangled Darkness came out. I got a lot. Several were about psychiatry. Several were about specific characters. One was about my coffee setup. (I’ll get to it.) Here are three of the ones I keep coming back to. 1….
People ask me, sometimes politely and sometimes with an edge, why I keep setting murders in Portland. It’s a fair question. Portland is small. Portland is leafy. Portland is the kind of city where you can run into your therapist at the farmers market and then your therapist’s ex-husband at the next stall over. Statistically,…
If you woke up this morning and saw that The Divorce had finally dropped, you’ve probably already seen the early reviews, and you’ve probably already read the word gaslighting at least three times today. The word does a lot of work in psychological-thriller marketing. It also does a lot of work in real life. And, somehow, the more I…
Do one thing every day that scares you. I heard this advice on a recent podcast, and it struck me as a powerful framework for growth—not just for authors navigating book launches, but for all of us confronting life’s challenges. Fear is our constant companion. It lurks behind major life decisions and whispers doubt during…
Picture this: I’m sitting in my newly created writer’s nook—which is really just my living room chair next to a makeshift extra table—pondering how to respond to a reader’s question about what motivated me to begin writing “at this point in my career.” The unspoken subtext lingers like an awkward pause at a holiday family…
The other day, I found myself doing that thing again—the one where you’re sitting in front of a screen full of accomplished professionals, and your brain decides it’s the perfect moment to play its greatest self-doubt hits. The occasion was a writers’ group discussion about setting up book launch events. While daydreaming about a future…
Isn’t it deliciously ironic to suggest books that keep you awake at night? Here I am, many years deep in the mystery and thriller wilderness as a reader, still finding myself utterly seduced by stories that make me double-check my locks and eye my houseguests with gentle suspicion. Andrea Mara’s Someone in the Attic has…
A reader recently asked me a question I found myself pondering for quite a while: After so many years as a psychiatrist, what inspired you to make such a dramatic career change into crime fiction writing? The honest answer surprised even me. I made no decision to “change careers.” After a long stretch in healthcare,…
Author Mary Desch shares how her background in medicine inspired Tangled Darkness, an LGBTQ psychological medical thriller set in Portland, where a psychiatrist unravels a deadly clinic scandal amid the opioid crisis.
Addiction Recovery and opioid crisis suspense Originally posted by @darciahelle on Instagram as part of my Virtual Book Tour. The core theme of TANGLED DARKNESS explores how buried shame and unresolved trauma can destroy lives — even years into recovery. As a former addiction psychiatrist, I witnessed countless alcoholics and addicts whose past mistakes haunted…
This interview was original posted on the Hott Books blog as part of my Virtual Book Tour. What inspired you to write your first book? After leaving a long career in psychiatry, I wanted a creative outlet to explore new territory. During the journaling associated with Caroline Myss’s book, Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential, I…
Originally published on Story Circle Network‘s Her Stories Substack, in the True Words by Real Women section. At six years old, I met Shakespeare in my grandmother’s bedroom at 11:47 p.m. on a sweltering Nebraska night. I know the exact time because I’d been staring at her alarm clock for two hours, my stomach churning…
The psychological thriller genre, known for its unique blend of suspense, mystery, and elements of horror, has a special place in the hearts of many book lovers. I’d like to explore some reasons behind the enduring popularity of psychological thrillers and why fans like me can’t get enough of these mind-bending stories.
I’m thrilled to share that the revisions I made earlier this year to TANGLED DARKNESS might be propelling me closer to publication. In all honesty, I hadn’t anticipated the domino effect that would result from a professional manuscript edit. The process entailed several thorough read-throughs of the entire story, but it didn’t stop there. Every…
End of content
End of content