Family Secrets . . .
Find out how Joanna Schaffhausen combines family secrets, neuroscience, and murder in her trio of novels, the most recent out this week from Minotaur Press!
Love to know what inspires writers? Don’t miss my post on how Nikola Tesla inspired Colleen Winter. Click the link here.
The Author

Joanna Schaffhausen wields a mean scalpel, skills she developed in her years studying neuroscience. She has a doctorate in psychology, which reflects her long-standing interest in the brain―how it develops and the many ways it can go wrong.
Previously, she worked as a scientific editor in the field of drug development. Prior to that, she was an editorial producer for ABC News, writing for programs such as World News Tonight, Good Morning America, and 20/20.
She lives in the Boston area with her husband and daughter.
To learn more about Joanna, click on her name, photo or any of the following links: Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
The Books
All The Best Lies

FBI agent Reed Markham is haunted by one painful unsolved mystery: who murdered his mother?
Camilla was brutally stabbed to death more than forty years ago while baby Reed lay in his crib mere steps away. The trail went so cold that the Las Vegas Police Department has given up hope of solving the case.
But then a shattering family secret changes everything Reed knows about his origins, his murdered mother, and his powerful adoptive father, state senator Angus Markham.
Now Reed has to wonder if his mother’s killer is uncomfortably close to home.
To buy the book click on any of the following links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and IndieBound
No Mercy

Police officer Ellery Hathaway is on involuntary leave from her job because she shot a murderer in cold blood and refuses to apologize for it. Forced into group therapy for victims of violent crime, Ellery immediately finds higher priorities than “getting in touch with her feelings.”
For one, she suspects a fellow group member may have helped to convict the wrong man for a deadly arson incident years ago. For another, Ellery finds herself in the desperate clutches of a woman who survived a brutal rape. He is still out there, this man with the Spider-Man-like ability to climb through bedroom windows, and his victim beseeches Ellery for help in capturing her attacker.
To buy the book click on any of the following links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and IndieBound
The Vanishing Season

Ellery Hathaway knows a thing or two about serial killers, but not through her police training. She’s an officer in sleepy Woodbury, MA, where a bicycle theft still makes the newspapers.
No one there knows she was once victim number seventeen in the grisly story of serial killer Francis Michael Coben. The only one who lived.
When three people disappear from her town in three years—all around her birthday—Ellery fears someone knows her secret. Someone very dangerous. Her superiors dismiss her concerns, but Ellery knows the vanishing season is coming and anyone could be next.
To buy the book click on any of the following links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and IndieBound
The Interview
As mystery authors, we often write about family secrets. What drew you to a family secret at the heart of your latest mystery?
“I think we all have family secrets . . .”
How does your background in neuroscience and psychology impact your writing?
What drew you to being a crime writer?
“I’ve just always been interested in the puzzle aspect of mysteries . . .”
How has your writing evolved over the course of three books?
You also spend time in the fascinating world of pharmaceutical research. Anything on the horizon you are especially excited about?
“Neurological diseases are among the hardest to treat for a variety of reasons, not least that the brain is hard-wired to keep drugs OUT as much as possible. Just getting the treatment into the cells is a tricky business.”
A Writer’s Life and the Death of My Father
What are you working on now?
“It’s important to have friends to laugh and cry about it with so that you don’t end up talking to yourself in a locked room.”
Final Words of Wisdom:
Lean into what you’re good at and go from there. You can’t be all kinds of writer at once, nor should you be.
Make sure your prose is at least serviceable. Editors will pass on books that require too much cleaning up.
The real story is the friends you make along the way! Find writer friends to share your joys and tribulations because there is so much about this business you can’t control.
It’s important to have friends to laugh and cry about it with so that you don’t end up talking to yourself in a locked room.
Thanks for spending time with us! Best of luck with your latest release.
Header Photo by The Digital Artist on Pixabay. Click the link here for more information.