I was recently interviewed by the USA TODAY bestselling author Uvi Pozansky about the upcoming release of The Offside Coroner. You can read the full interview on her blog, but here are some of the highlights.
The eighth book in the Fenway Stevenson Mysteries, The Offside Coroner, will be released in September 2022. How has your relationship with your main character changed over the years?
The more I write about Fenway, the more she reveals herself to me. She and I have a lot in common: she’s an extroverted introvert, for example. She follows her nose in both her career and her relationships, yet she tends to overthink things—which I think is an interesting dynamic. More and more, however—and I’m by no means the only author to experience this—my main character does what she wants, so she doesn’t follow my plans.
The Offside Coroner is about a women’s professional soccer team. Why did you choose that topic?
I’m a fan of women’s professional soccer. In the autumn of 2021, Paul Riley, the coach of the North Carolina Courage, a pro soccer team in the USA’s NWSL, was accused of sexually coercing his players in exchange for playing time or for promising not to hold brutal practice sessions the next day. Riley was fired, and the investigation revealed an institutional problem, not only in the NWSL, but many other women’s sports programs, both professional and collegiate.
The Fenway series can be a lot of fun, but it also tackles some big issues. In The Offside Coroner ('offside' being both a soccer infraction and an informal synonym for something that crosses a line of good taste or ethics), the fictional head coach of the fictional Las Vegas Neons is fired for sexual assault—and hours later is found dead in his hotel room. Fenway finds herself sympathizing more with the suspects than with the victim.
What’s next for Fenway Stevenson?
I just released The Clandestine Coroner (set between Book 7 and Book 8), and a Fenway Christmas novella is coming this October. After that, I’m writing the next book in the Woodhead & Becker series, and I’m planning to continue the character arc for Fenway. Right now, I’m planning a total of five novels in this next arc—but who knows what Fenway will decide to do once I put her on the page!