An Ill Conceived Beginning

Welcome, L. C. Hayden to Murderous Musings. What prompted you to begin a new series. 

I like to travel. So when I decided to start a new series, I knew my protagonist would not be the stay-at-home type—or even the stay in one place type. Each novel would find my character in a different city. Since I’m the author, I would naturally have to visit those places in order to capture the atmosphere that is so unique to each area. How convenient. I like this idea.

Next, I had to decide: should my character be male or female? I have another series, the award-winning Harry Bronson Mystery Series. I didn’t want my new character to be similar to Bronson. 

That concept became the major influencing factor as far as selecting gender. This new series would have a female protagonist.

I focused on Aimee Brent’s job selection. Aimee needed a profession that would naturally lead her to mayhem. Since Bronson is a retired detective, I immediately ruled out policemen, detectives, F.B.I. agents, or any other similar job. I also wanted her to have a vocation that would be easy to research or even better, have one that I knew a bit about.

I received my Bachelor’s Degree in journalism. That would work. Aimee, the reporter, would make an excellent journalist. Not only do I have a concept of what the job requires, Aimee would often find that in order to follow her leads, she would have to travel, and I, of course, would have to visit that state park or city or country in order to correctly write about it.

There you go: a new character is born at age 25. Now that I had my protagonist, I could focus on the plot. I wanted a complex character that at one point would be strong, but the next, weak.  Consequently, I gave Aimee a deep, dark secret that she keeps buried deep within her heart.

Aimee is unaware of all of the dark details from her past because she blocked them a long time ago. Now, her current major assignment, an important murder case, causes her to face her fears. She wants to succeed as a journalist. She wants to be the one who helps solve the major murder case she is currently covering. But because she travels into the unknown, the steps she takes only brings her closer to the killer.

Thus the premise for ILL Conceived is born. The story begins when Grandma Louise hears a scream in the middle of the night. When no one else does, the police dismiss it as an old woman’s ravings. Aimee Brent, an ambitious, dedicated reporter for the North Shore Carrier, the Lake Tahoe newspaper, sets out to prove Grandma Louise right. In so doing, Aimee is forced to face her past, a past filled with so much darkness that it threatens her very existence and leads her down a twisted, dangerous road from which she may never return.

For more details about Aimee or about me, please visit my website at www.lchayden.com and like my author page on Facebook. 

~Submitted by Jean Henry Mead