with Susan Israel
We are delighted to welcome author Susan Israel to Omnimystery News today, courtesy of The Story Plant, which is coordinating her current book tour. We encourage you to visit all of the participating host sites; you can find her schedule here.
Susan's debut novel of suspense is Over My Live Body (The Story Plant; March 2014 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we recently had a chance to talk to the author about her new book.
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Omnimystery News: Is Over My Live Body a stand-alone novel of suspense or the first of a series?
Photo provided courtesy of
Susan Israel
Susan Israel: When I started to write Over My Live Body, I wasn't contemplating a series, but I didn't want to let go of Delilah Price. While I fully envisioned her evolving and growing in every ensuing book in the series, according to the circumstances in her life, I also saw Detective Patrick Quick as more static, more stoic, slower to grow and just as likely to regress, also due to circumstances, which leads to sparks and conflicts.
OMN: How much of your own personal or professional experience have you included in the book?
SI: Like my character Delilah Price, I also modeled for art classes (at Yale School of Art), though I never experienced any of the unpleasantness of being stalked. Modeling for art classes is more about trying to keep limbs from falling asleep than eroticism, but I related all too well to Delilah's discomfiture about how she is perceived by non-artists.
OMN: How did you go about researching the plot points of your story?
SI: Aside from the actual modeling experience, I took photos of the settings I intended to include in Over My Live Body. I did a walk through of routes my characters took and, most fun of all, did a civilian ride around in a NYPD cruiser. The NYPD was most helpful and cooperative. I think I might be the only person who begged to be fingerprinted at the Sixth Precinct. All in the name of research!
OMN: Your book is set in New York City. How true are you to the setting?
SI: I think a majority of New Yorkers would recognize most of the locales that serve as backdrops. I steer away from actual business/establishment names, having learned in writing classes that naming names is the quickest route to obsolescence; businesses change names, move and close on a regular basis, sometimes overnight. In my second novel, Student Bodies, the students attend a middle school that doesn't exist; because of the subject matter, I didn't want any parents of 7th and 8th grade girls worrying whether that's the school their kids attend. Though unfortunately crime can happen anywhere.
OMN: Complete this sentence for us: "I am a crime novelist and thus I am also …".
SI: I am a crime novelist and thus I am also vicariously a serial killer. JUST kidding! I think I'm motivated by a thirst for truth and justice. I was, on separate occasions, mugged and held up at gunpoint. That's not research I recommend!
OMN: If Over My Live Body were to be adapted for television or film, who do you see playing the key roles?
SI: I would love to see Jennifer Lawrence playing the part of Delilah. She's proven she has Delilah's "klutz genes" (tripping/falling at the Oscars two years in a row!) She'd be perfect! I'm not sure who would play Detective Patrick Quick. I guess I don't see enough movies. I'm too busy writing — and watching awards shows.
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Susan Israel lives in Connecticut with her beloved dog, but New York City lives in her heart and mind. A graduate of Yale College, her fiction has been published in Other Voices, Hawaii Review and Vignette and she has written for magazines, websites and newspapers, including Glamour, Girls Life, Ladies Home Journal and The Washington Post. She's currently at work on the second book in the Delilah Price series, Student Bodies.
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Over My Live Body
Susan Israel
A Novel of Suspense
Delilah is accustomed to people seeing her naked. As a nude model — a gig that keeps food on the table while her career as a sculptor takes off — it comes with the territory.
But Delilah has never before felt this vulnerable.
Because Delilah has an admirer. Someone who is paying a great deal of attention to her. And he just might love her to death.
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