Steph Cha

Steph Cha's latest novel is Dead Soon Enough: Juniper Song Mysteries (Volume 3).

From her Q & A with Sarah Weinman:

The Crime Lady: What I love about the Juniper Song books is how much she changes over the course of each book. We meet her, in Follow Her Home, as a post-collegiate who more or less stumbles across a murder and sleuths it out. Then in Beware Beware she's a detective trainee, and now, in Dead Soon Enough, she is a junior detective, a part of a team. How important was it to show Song's professional growth and, to some degree, maturity over time, and when does she start running the agency?

Steph Cha: I actually wrote Follow Her Home as a standalone novel, and only decided to write Beware Beware when I had a strong idea for a sequel. Same deal with Dead Soon Enough. But once I figured out that I was writing a series, I knew I had to make sure that the sequence mattered, and that Song’s experiences in each book changed her outlook and her position in the world in essential—if not always major or obvious—ways. I think of Song as a real person, who’s grown with me, and I wanted to chart all the shifts in her character, in the things and people she cares about, in a way that felt organic. And, since she’s moving through her twenties, it made sense to give her some kind of a career path, which is something she lacked in the first book. Follow Her Home was all about Song dealing with her past and finding a purpose for her sluggish millennial life, so I’m glad that she’s stuck with investigation and carved out a path for herself. I don’t think she’s planning to...[read on]

Visit Steph Cha's website and Twitter perch.

Coffee with a Canine: Steph Cha and Duke.

My Book, The Movie: Follow Her Home.

The Page 69 Test: Follow Her Home.

Writers Read: Steph Cha (April 2013).

--Marshal Zeringue