Note: This transcript was generated by AI and lightly edited by a human. Please be aware there may be minor errors or typos.

[00:00:00.000] – Alan Petersen
You are listening to Meet the Thriller Author, and I’m your host, Allan Petersen. A lifelong fan of the genre and thriller author myself. This is episode 211, and we’re wrapping up 2024 in style with a very special guest, Vanessa Cronin, who is a senior editor for Amazon Books, covering the mystery, thriller, and suspense category. Vanessa and the other editors at Amazon recently published their pics for the best mystery, thriller, and suspense books of 2024. It’s the perfect time to take a look back at the year in readers and also get a peek behind the scenes at how the best books of the year list comes together over at Amazon, and we’ll even get a glimpse of what’s on the horizon in 2025. But before we jump into my interview with Vanessa, I wanted to share my own top five readers of 2024. These were the most suspensful page-turning reads I just couldn’t put down. You can find my complete list over at thrillingreads. Com/24. While you’re at it, don’t miss Amazon’s list at thrillingreads. Com/amazonbest24. From there, you’ll see the entire list, and you can order some of these amazing, thrilling reads right from Amazon’s website. I’d love to hear if you agree or disagree with my picks or with Amazon Editor’s Choices. You can find me on social at Thrilling Reads on X, formerly Twitter, or at Meet Thriller Author on Facebook. I’d love to hear your thoughts and what you enjoyed in 2024. All right, have a fantastic new year. More author interviews are coming in 2025, which happens to mark the 10th anniversary of Meet the Thriller Author. Hard to believe, right? It’s just time flies. All right, let’s dive into my conversation with Vanessa Cronin. Hey, everybody. This is Alan with Meet the Thriller author. For the podcast today, I’m going to be chatting with Vanessa Cronin, who is an Amazon Books Senior Editor, and she covers the mystery, thriller, and suspense categories. They recently published their best mysteries, readers, and suspense books of 2024. This is a great way to wrap up the year, my opinion. Happy and excited to have Vanessa on as a guest. Welcome back to the podcast.

[00:02:12.660] – Vannessa Cronin
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[00:02:14.190] – Alan Petersen
I know I’ve had you on earlier this year when you guys had the best of the half of the year, I think it was.

[00:02:20.500] – Vannessa Cronin
Best of the year so far, yes.

[00:02:21.990] – Alan Petersen
Yeah, best of the year so far. Now this is a perfect way to wrap up the year. Just as a reminder, in case of listeners didn’t catch that last episode. Can you tell us a little bit about your selection process, how that works over there at Amazon HQ?

[00:02:38.300] – Vannessa Cronin
We are a small group. There’s fewer than a dozen of us editors, and we are reading constantly. We read everything that we can lay our hands on that publishes in a given month, and every month we publish a best of the month list, which is like staff pics by any other name. It’s just all the books we’re super excited about. Then twice a year, we gather all the best of the month picks. For best of the year so far, obviously, it’s the first six months of the year. In November, we look at the entire year and we decide which of our best of the month pics. We stack rank them, basically. If we’ve missed anything, best of the year so far and best of the year are a good way to shoehorn stuff that we’ve missed in because there’s just so many books publishing, we can’t get to them all. That’s the process. We argue, we fight, we champion, we pitch, we lobby, we say, Oh, but this is the best book I read all year. I read it in a single sitting, and we use that process, which is very unscientific and very much based on just love of books to hammer out a list.

[00:03:46.130] – Alan Petersen
Yeah, that’s it. I remember that with your background, too. You’ve been in the book business one way or the other for many years, right? So you all love it.

[00:03:53.240] – Vannessa Cronin
Yeah, all of us have, in fact. There’s over 100 years of publishing experience between the lot of us. So, yeah, this is when you love books, you just look for jobs that keep you near books.

[00:04:07.590] – Alan Petersen
I’m curious, though, now with this final list process. This is the final one of the year. Do you find it more pressure to curate this list than other lists throughout the year, or is it just like the-

[00:04:19.770] – Vannessa Cronin
Yes, because we announced in mid-November, which means that we have to read December books a little early just to make sure we haven’t missed something there. And there is that pressure of, have we read everything that we need to read? Are we missing anything? Then there’s also the fact that we have 20 slots for both best of the year so far and best of the year. Again, it’s like how to condense an entire year of reading down into the top 20 and the top 100. The top 100, thank God, gives us a little leeway to add more of our favorite darlings, but it’s a lot of books to consider and a lot A lot of editors. As I say, there’s coming up on a dozen of us. It’s trying to condense all those books down into one cogent list that we think will have something for every reader, something for every customer, and still represent our year of reading. That’s a big task.

[00:05:19.850] – Alan Petersen
Yeah, I could imagine. I think it’s a great process the way you guys have it set up, too, because like you said, you’re all arguing. It’s not like it’s one person is in charge of the list, so it makes a little bit confusing.

[00:05:30.000] – Vannessa Cronin
No. That’s the thing is that even though we manage our categories, we manage particular categories, we have the freedom to read across all categories. I read one of my favorite books this year, this past year, was actually a biography, which was Griffin Dunne’s memoir, The Friday Afternoon Club. I advocated for that. Hardcore, let me tell you, for both best of the year and best of the year so far. We can read outside category, which is really nice, too.

[00:05:59.260] – Alan Petersen
I’m not familiar with that one. I’ll have to add that one to the list. I enjoyed his work as an actor.

[00:06:04.290] – Vannessa Cronin
Oh, my God. The first half of it is just this fabulous name-dropy Hollywood insider recollection of him from the time he was a child with hilarious stories with these marquee names. Then the second half is basically true crime because his sister Dominique was murdered, and he talks about how that happened, the lead up to that, and how it shattered the family, and how they tried to come together and rebuild. It’s almost like two books in one, and they’re very, very different. But he has definitely inherited the family knack for storytelling. It’s marvelous. Can’t recommend it highly enough.

[00:06:40.080] – Alan Petersen
Well, I’ll definitely have to check that one out for sure. That’s why I like talking to you about these books too, because I’ll say that we’ll get into the books later, of course, but I only read a couple of them, so I feel like, Oh, no, I’m really behind the curve here. It’s great to have a list.

[00:06:57.020] – Vannessa Cronin
That’s what we’re hoping that people will look at the list and everybody will see at least a few books that speak to them that they want to check out. That’s how we know we’ve done a good list.

[00:07:09.080] – Alan Petersen
I’m curious, too, with the discovery process. Like you said before, with so many books published each year, and I know Amazon, I can’t even imagine how many books get published there every month, probably, with the KDP side of it, too. How do you find these new titles? How do they get onto your radar?

[00:07:26.730] – Vannessa Cronin
The short answer is that publishers present to us. We have a lot of Zoom calls with publishers back in New York, and they present lists and their highlights and the books that they’re most excited about. Then the rest of it is, as I say, the fact that we have all got publishing experience, where there’s a catalog aggregator called Edelweiss that I spend unholy amounts of time in, just pottering around, looking for new things, trying to make sure I haven’t missed anything, making lists of things that I need to read. Then we also, like Like any reader, we’re members of Facebook pages. I’m a member of various psychological thriller pages. I follow certain authors, make sure I know when they’ve got something new coming out. We read trade periodicals, we read blogs. I’m signed up to a ton of mystery and thriller blogs, all in the hope of making sure that I don’t miss anything because when the publishers are presenting to us, it is, generally speaking, the heavy hitters, the big titles. But I really like to have my lists populated with authors that may not get as much marketing attention, with up and coming authors, with debut authors.

[00:08:40.840] – Vannessa Cronin
I like to have a nice mix of the super publisher support supported and the discovery pics, essentially.

[00:08:48.910] – Alan Petersen
Yeah. Is it possible for an independent author who’s self-published through KDP, for example, to catch the editor’s eyes? What would they have to do?

[00:08:58.970] – Vannessa Cronin
Well, I will say upfront that we’re publisher agnostic in that we basically take a look at everything that comes in front of us and whatever speaks to us. Like I say, it’s almost like the staff pics idea where we’re like, whatever speaks to us is what we read. No matter how big it is, if it’s something that nobody on the team wants to read, we’ll take a look. But overall, I would say that if you can make sure that your title is in Edelweiss or Netgalley, if you can have a social media presence because we follow social media accounts, those are good ways of getting on our radar. It’s like we’re almost like the common reader ourselves. That’s how we try to be. Our reading tastes are not dictated by algorithms or best seller lists or pre-orders or any of that. We really are like a proxy for the regular reader. If independent authors are doing the kinds of things they’re doing to attract the eye of regular readers, chances are they’ll catch our eye, too.

[00:10:08.950] – Alan Petersen
Oh, yeah, it’s fascinating. I love that title, that term of publisher agnostics.

[00:10:14.270] – Vannessa Cronin
Yeah, Because I know there’s always that thing of the traditional publishers get an unfair share of the pie. But honestly, we are looking across the board. Anything that gets in front of us, we’re going to at least crack the spine and check out and see if we want to read it. We’re not saying 60% of the books need to be from this publisher or that publisher or that section of publishing. We’ll read anything. We’re, like I say, publisher, Fantastic.

[00:10:46.570] – Alan Petersen
What were the reader trends that you picked up in 2024 and that influenced your selections for this year? Do you see a specific trend that popped out?

[00:10:57.120] – Vannessa Cronin
I have to say we’re the worst for trend spotting because it’s not how we decide to read books. In fact, it’s better for me if I’m not aware of the trends. I just want to read good books, you know what I mean, rather than try and follow a trend. But the big trend for me that I noticed this year was just genre blending. I cannot recall a year where the editors spend so much time trying to decide which category a book should be in. In fact, my two biggest books in the mystery and thriller category, The God of the Woods and All Colors of the Dark. Both of those were categorized The God of the Woods as fiction/family life and All Colors of the Dark as fiction/ literary, and we were warned about the God of the Woods. She did the Long Bright River, which was a mystery, best of the year mystery pick for Amazon, but this is not a mystery. Then I started reading it and I was like, I’m a huge mystery reader, and I love this book. It’s There’s two missing children in it. What can you say? The fact that it was both literary fiction, it was mystery, it was domestic fiction, it was a mix of all of these things. It was historical. That genre blending was a huge thing this year. And I don’t know if there’s a literary reason behind it or a societal reason behind it, but one of our other big pics was the Ministry of Time. That was the genre genre blending king for the year because that was like time travel, mystery and thriller, sci-fi. I mean, that had so many genres in it. That was the big trend that I noticed for 2024.

[00:12:44.900] – Alan Petersen
That’s so amazing. I remember I interviewed Dean Koontz a couple of times, and he had said earlier in his career, 30 years ago, they were like… Because he always blends things, and they’re like mad at him. You can’t do that. Yeah. There’s incredible things are changing.

[00:12:58.640] – Vannessa Cronin
Yeah. I suppose One of the couple of the smaller trends then is that I’ve noticed, and I attribute this to the Thursday murder club a little bit, humor and mystery. I mean, there have always been funny, cozies and stuff like that, but I can’t recall a time that dark humor and dark mystery have been blended to such great effect, like Listen for the Lie, Amy Tintera. That is a book, on one hand, that’s about a woman who’s accused of murdering her best friend. On the other hand, it’s just this voice-driven, character-rich story. Again, I think that the success of the Thursday murder Club has inspired people to go a little deeper. Because the Thursday murder Club, when you think about it, the last one had an antique dealer who’s murdered by being bludgeoned in the head in his car. At the same time, it was one of the funniest books I read that year. You don’t think about violent death and humor going together so well. But that’s definitely, as I say, with books like Listen for the Lie, that has definitely been a little trend. Then the other thing that I find fantastic as a mystery and thriller editor is that it’s getting easier and easier to find books by diverse voices.

[00:14:23.670] – Vannessa Cronin
That has been something everybody complains about publishing is not doing enough to have more inclusive rosters of authors. And mystery and thriller was always cast as one of those categories where it was particularly difficult. Now I’m just seeing authors of color all over the place. Fantastic books. Black River was one of our top pics. And then Ambiko Jean, The Return of Ellie Black, an Asian-American author who we had the pleasure of meeting in Seattle, and she’s wonderful. Her novel, The Return of Ellie Black, was fantastic. I love that, that we’re seeing more voices, more stories, diverse stories being told in the mystery space. That seems to be a fabulous trend that I hope continues.

[00:15:18.040] – Alan Petersen
Yeah, excellent. Let’s get into some of the specific books from the list because this is so fascinating, especially, I guess we’ll start at the top, right? Number one was The God of the Woods by Liz More. Can you tell us about that book?

[00:15:31.740] – Vannessa Cronin
Yeah, that book opens when a young girl, Barbara Van Laar, goes to stay in a sleepaway camp. It’s a sleepaway camp that’s actually on her family, her wealthy family’s estate in this remote area in Pennsylvania, and she disappears out of her bunk. One morning, her new camp friend wakes up and she’s gone. From there, the whole thing unspooled. We get to see Barbara’s family. We get to see into her parents’ marriage. We find out that another child, in fact, Barbara’s brother, disappeared seven or eight years earlier. It’s just this… I can’t even describe reading this book because it was just everywhere you turned, there was some nugget of richness to be read. It’s got race and class and privilege, blue collar, blue blood, the Wilded cage versus the hard scrabble working class folk. Then in the middle of it, all this mystery that seems to key off all of those things. But for most of the book, you’re just not sure how. Then the ending, which I won’t oil, but it just is unexpected and absolutely perfect. You know what I mean? You just admire Liz Moore for taking it there. It’s one of those books that we described it as a literary thriller because you could give this to the person who says they don’t read mysteries because they’re too low-brow.

[00:17:06.670] – Vannessa Cronin
This is the perfect mix of literary and mystery.

[00:17:11.490] – Alan Petersen
The other book I wanted to ask you about was Chris Whitaker’s All the Colors of the Dark. I saw there’s been a lot of praise for it for its emotional range. I was curious about that. How do you balance that? Because these are suspense and thrillers, the category, but these are a little different. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

[00:17:30.330] – Vannessa Cronin
Yeah, this is one of those books. I’m not kidding. It’s 600 pages, and I read it in a day because it is just that propulsive. I mean, I had the advantage of starting at breakfast. But yeah, he does these short chapters. Even though it covers about 40 years and even though the incident that precipitates the entire book is the kidnapping of this young boy, Patch, and best friend Saint, a little girl who lives nearby, she is absolutely devastated by this, and she dedicates herself to finding him as little and all as she is. Then over the course of 40 years, that story plays out, how Patch is kidnapped, who does it, what the effect on the family, the whole thing. It is emotional. At its heart, the fact that they categorize it as fiction/family life is absolutely apt because it is the relationship between these two children as they grow into adults. That is the emotional heart of the novel. But then there’s this huge cast of characters, family, mentors, friends, partners that come in through the pages and some of them leave, some of them stay throughout. It’s just such a kaleidoscopic novel. But as I say, because of those short chapters and because he whips from one storyline to the pretty fast. It’s just so propulsive. You just can’t help but gobble it up.

[00:19:05.590] – Alan Petersen
Then another one, this one I actually did read was, I’m probably going to butcher his name, Jason Rekulak?

[00:19:12.530] – Vannessa Cronin
Jason Rekulak.

[00:19:14.320] – Alan Petersen
Rekulak, okay.

[00:19:15.040] – Vannessa Cronin
I pronunced it the way you did it first, too, but we got a little tutorial.

[00:19:21.040] – Alan Petersen
That’s the last one at the wedding. I enjoyed that book. This is like one that you’ve mentioned before where it’s a thriller, but there’s There’s a bit of a comedy to it, a humor, which surprised me.

[00:19:34.970] – Vannessa Cronin
Frank, the father in this novel, is estranged from his daughter. He hasn’t spoken to her for three years, and his wife has passed away, so he’s got no conduit to his daughter Maggie. Then out of the blue, she calls him and invites him to her wedding. She’s getting married to the son of this tech millionaire. Frank reminds me of Red, the dad in that ’70s show, where he’s a curmudgeon. He has his way of doing things, and he can’t get out of his own way when it comes to his relationship with his daughter. He’s dimly aware of this, so he’s trying to hold his tongue. He’s trying to just get into her good graces and stay there this time. It’s almost like a sitcom set up in some respects. And like I say, he is almost like a sitcom dad. This is a guy that’s very proud of a 26-year unbroken record as a UPS driver with no accidents, and yet his relationship with his daughter is just strewn with blowups and blowouts. When he gets to the gigantic estate where the marriage is to take place, red flags go off. He knows something is up. He wants to protect his daughter, but he finds it very, very difficult to make his voice heard. Yeah, it’s really, really funny on one hand. I mean, his guest for the wedding is his sister, who’s a social worker, who has brought one of her foster kids who has lice along for the ride. There is a very comic aspect to it. At the same time, there is this child in peril, even if she is a grown up. And the two marry really, really well.

[00:21:19.230] – Alan Petersen
Now, I have to ask, of course, all this battle of coming up with this incredible list, but I’m so curious now. The near misses. The near misses.

[00:21:29.760] – Vannessa Cronin
It’s really hard. I don’t want to almost name a particular book in case anybody’s like, Oh, really? But one of the ones was Five Year Lie. I have to say, when we’re picking books for this, we really want to pick the books that absolutely wowed us. You know how I know someone far more articulate than me put this better, but they said there’s good books and there’s bad books. That’s all there Everything else is marketing. But I think among the good books, there are the books that you go to for comfort and familiarity. They have all the beats and the tropes that you enjoy. Then there are the books that are good because they challenge your expectations. For the selection criteria, we’re really looking for the books from that latter group, where it’s something that challenges your expectations. It could be something like Steve Cavenagh’s Kill for You, Kill for Me, where it’s the Strangers on a Train set up, but he takes it into just completely different areas and does things with that plot line that you would never guess while holding true to the spirit of the thing. We’re really after the books that, as I say, we just can say to a customer, I read this and I loved it. It kept me up until 3:00 AM. I want everyone I know to read this book so we can talk about it. That’s the bar for us. If it’s something that didn’t make the list, chances are it comes from that first group where it was really good, it was really familiar. It’s that book you want to read on a plane because it’s not going to require 110% concentration or whatever. That’s the dividing line.

[00:23:23.100] – Alan Petersen
You mentioned kill for me, kill for you, that was on the list. I enjoyed that one, too. That’s the other one that I read from that list. That was really good. I’m curious now with… Got to touch on the trends that surprise you in 2024. Just based on what you saw this year, any predictions that we’re going to dominate the genre next year?

[00:23:45.860] – Vannessa Cronin
I feel like the trend of social commentary that’s worked its way into mystery and thriller is going to continue. That’s going to be a big thing. I particularly see it in indigenous mystery writers. There have been so many over the last couple of years that have dealt with the missing Indigenous women and the problem with getting law enforcement to be as diligent about hunting them down as they are about missing white women, from Ramona Emerson to Marcie R. Rendon. That has just been a trend, and I see that continuing. I saw even the latest, Craig Johnson, the latest Longmire book, had that as a plot line as well. So that will continue. Another trend that has been bubbling up, certainly for a year or two, is feminism and horror, which is an odd mashup. But when you read it, it makes perfect sense. I’m thinking of Tiny Threads, which was the best of the month pick. That was a book about a Latina woman who goes to work for her idol, her fashion mentor. Basically, things don’t quite work the way she thought they would. It’s like a psychological suspense/horror. I learned more about code switching and how it is to be a person of color in a mostly white work environment from this tiny little novella. It was because she totally brilliantly used it in the storyline to build suspense and to build a sense of dread and unease. I think that trend of horror and feminism and social commentary is going to continue into 2025.

[00:25:31.520] – Alan Petersen
That’s more of those genre crossovers that you’re talking about, like the God of the Woods.

[00:25:49.400] – Vannessa Cronin
It is. But also just bringing social commentary more into the mystery space, which I’m not certain that mystery would have been the category that anybody would have gone to for help in figuring out social issues. But it’s gradually, I find even the fact that the trend of less women as victims in mystery and thriller, there’s very few of those these days. A lot of them, a lot of the books that center on violence against women, the women have incredible agency in these books, and that is a trend. There are far more books about women killers. Another trend that I love, speaking of women killers, that’s been going on for the last couple of years as well, is retired women. One of my favorite books of 2024 was a book called The Excitements by C. J. Wray, and it was about two sisters, 90-year-old World War II veterans who are hiding an espionage past, and their nephew, blively and unknowingly, gets them on a long list for an award that they must pick up in Paris, and they use it to settle some old scores. Stores. So retired people and retired women in particular, being killers and having agency and kicking a little butt. I’m also thinking about books like The Spy Coast and Killers of a Certain Age from last year. And those have clearly resonated with customers because both of those books, The Spy Coast and Killers of a Certain Age, have turned into series and now have second books coming out in 2025. Since I loved both of those books, I will be first in line to read the sequels.

[00:27:18.450] – Alan Petersen
Yeah, I think it’s really cool, too. I’ve been noticing those global perspectives that we talked about last time, Black River, which is set in rural India. That getting social issues, not just from the US, but from other parts of the I think it’s fascinating.

[00:27:31.800] – Vannessa Cronin
Well, I think that in part is how American publishers are addressing the inclusivity issue as well, is that I see a lot more books brought in from other countries. Mysteries featuring Indian, Southeast Asian, protagonists are definitely on the rise. In fact, there’s one coming up in, I think it’s February that I’m very excited about called Oromay It was a book that was published, a political thriller that was published in Ethiopia in 1983 and is now getting its first US publication in 2025. It’s one of those books that I’m excited to read this one as well.

[00:28:14.030] – Alan Petersen
What other books are you excited about for 2025? Can you give us a little sneak peek for next year?

[00:28:20.960] – Vannessa Cronin
Okay. No particular order, no particular importance. One of the books that I’m most excited is The Quiet Librarian by Alan Eskins. He is the author of such books as Saving Emma. He’s a regular… He keys off and toggles between gritlet and straight-up readers. This is a historical novel about a historian during World War II whose friend goes missing, and the library goes after her friend. I’m just so excited to see him change gears like I’m fascinated, so that’s high on my list. One of the books that I’m very excited about also is Joseph Finders, the Oligarch’s Daughter, which is succession meets John Grisham’s The Firm. This is about a slightly cocky hedge fund manager who meets cute with this young woman named Tatiana. By the time he’s madly in love with her, then she chooses to tell him that her father is basically this cutthroat Russian oligarch. Then his company goes to the wall and he finds himself hired by his father-in-law. And of course, everything goes wrong from there. It’s told in dual timelines. You see this gentleman trying to escape Russian assassin and in alternating chapters, you go back and you see the same man, this time named Peter meeting Tadeana, and the two stories hook up at a certain point. It is absolutely brilliant. I can’t wait for this book to be out in the world and people talking about it. It is It’s so good. It’s one of those books where the structure of it as well as the plot line, tight as a drum, there is not a word out of place or extraneous in this book, and it’s propulsive. It’s another book where I read it in a day. So Very excited for that one to be out in the world.

[00:30:17.500] – Vannessa Cronin
Then there is another book called Dark Money by Jacob Carr. This is basically a Silicon Valley murder mystery, flash, I don’t know how you would say it, heist? I don’t want to give away too much. But it is also this fantastic character-driven thriller where the twist when it comes will just blow you away. But the murder mystery that they’re solving, which is the death of this CEO, almost like a locked room mystery where the CEO is killed and only his five C-suite executives, one of them has to have done it. We have a fixer for a hedge fund operation that has an investment in this CEO’s company. The fixer is paired with an FBI agent, and of course, they don’t get along well. He’s trying to shut her out of the investigation. She’s trying to do end runs around him. You’re so taken up with this investigation that the pages just fly by. Another one where smart, character-driven, and that whole thing about succession, the inner working of corporate America and how things are done, very topical, very timely, and an absolute page burner. It’s so good.

[00:31:39.150] – Alan Petersen
That sounded really good. Then with specific authors, too, like newer authors, which ones do you think would have an impact in 2025?

[00:31:51.480] – Vannessa Cronin
You were asking earlier about self-published authors. I feel like Kirsten Modglin, who has written her two biggest books, I think, are called Hemlock and The Arrangement. She is self-published, and I feel like 2025 could be her year. I feel like she’s on the bubble. I’m embarrassed to say I only discovered her in the last few months, but she writes readers that are right up there with Ruth Ware, Lisa Jewell, very character-driven, very authentic characters, and they’re just, again, propulsive. She’s definitely finding an audience. I see that one of her books has almost 25,000 reviews on her site, which is amazing for a self-published author. But I feel like she could follow the path of Colleen Hoover and Freda McFadden and be the next big breakout from the independently published world.

[00:32:45.310] – Alan Petersen
Yeah, I read a couple of her books. I enjoy her books. She writes great stuff.

[00:32:50.750] – Vannessa Cronin
Yeah, really intricate but easy to follow plots and, like I say, clever character development. I really enjoy what I’ve read of her, too. I’m excited to see where she goes.

[00:33:03.740] – Alan Petersen
All right, Vannessa. As well, before I let you go, I always try to ask for the aspiring writers that listen to this for advice. Yours is a little different, of course, from the editing world, but any advice for aspiring writers who would like to make your list someday?

[00:33:19.490] – Vannessa Cronin
I feel embarrassed to offer advice. It’s almost like me telling a painter how to paint a portrait. I don’t know if I have it. I will say that But one of the things I notice is there’s a difference between slow burn and tough to get into. I would definitely ask authors to look at that first quarter of their novel. If there’s a lot of scene setting and world building and stage setting going on, take a step back and see. Sometimes a prolog is necessary so people can get an idea of what they’re going to be working towards. Sometimes Sometimes you just need to have that killer first page, that killer first line. I always think of Richard Stark’s Firebreak, where he always had Parker doing something funny in the first lines. In Firebreak, the first line goes, When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage killing a man. I’m like, Is there any better first line than that? It just got me right into the book because now I have so many questions just after that first line alone. Hook them early and then get into your world building would be the thing because there’s a lot of people out there.

[00:34:34.210] – Vannessa Cronin
I know that DNF is one of those ongoing conversations in every social media page or group that I’m a member of. It’s astonishingly apparent that people, because probably you can get books, including ebooks, especially, so cheap these days, that people don’t finish a book. If they’ve bought it for 99 cents and it hasn’t hooked them in the first 30 pages, they’re going to move on. You know what I mean? That kills a word-of-mouth opportunity for that author and for that book if it got fantastic on page 60. That is my big thing is it’s all very well to be slow burn, but do something, do whatever it takes to hook them and ask that question that the reader must have answered so that your book doesn’t turn into a DNF. Is that what you had in mind? Yes. That might not be great advice. Authors might be going, Oh, no. But yeah, that’s my thing. You got to hook them.

[00:35:34.190] – Alan Petersen
Yeah, I love it. Avoid the DNF.

[00:35:36.060] – Vannessa Cronin
Mmm-hmm..

[00:35:38.000] – Alan Petersen
Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I always love talking about books with you. So thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing.

[00:35:44.270] – Vannessa Cronin
Thanks, Alan.

[00:35:46.560] – Alan Petersen
Thank you for tuning in to today’s episode of Meet the Thriller Author. I hope you found our conversation with today’s guest as enlightening and engaging as I did. Before we part ways, I’d like to ask a small favor. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please take a moment to rate and review it on your podcast platform. Your feedback not only supports our show, but also helps other thriller enthusiasts find us. Don’t forget to visit thrillingreads. Com/links to sign up for our Thrilling Reads newsletter. It’s a great way to stay updated on all the latest episodes and exclusive content designed just for our listeners. If you’re curious about my own readers, head over to alanpetersen. Com. You’ll find all my books there, along with some behind-the-scenes insights in my writing process. I’ll catch you on the next episode of Meet the Thriller Author, where we’ll continue to explore the intriguing dark alleys of the thriller and mystery genre together. Until then, keep the pages turning..