Episode 40: Jenny Milchman

Destination Mystery

My husband wasn't in bed with me when I woke up that January morning. The mid-winter sky was bruised purple and yellow outside the window. I shut bleary eyes against light that glared and pounded. A second later I realized my toes weren't burrowing into the hollows behind Brendan's knees, that when I flung out my arm it didn't meet his wiry chest... -- Jenny Milchman, Cover of Snow Thriller author Jenny Milchman writes page-turning novels of women in jeopardy -- and the courage and resourcefulness they find inside of themselves in the face of danger. Check out Jenny's website for information on all of her books and to check out her blog. In addition to writing thrillers (all of which were chosen as Indie Next picks) Jenny is on the board of International Thriller Writers and interviews writers for the radio show, Next Steps with Jenny Milchman and ITW on Authors on the Air. And if that weren't enough, you can find Jenny on Facebook, Twitter, and Patreon. Whew! Jenny gives shout-outs to two books: The Freedom Broker, by K.J. Howe -- a debut novel and the first of a series of high-octane thrillers -- and We Need to Talk About Kevin, a tense and intimate look at a family destroyed by violence, by Lionel Shriver. Jenny's own books are all stand-alones: Cover of Snow Ruin Falls As Night Falls As always, if you'd rather read than listen, here is the transcript. Enjoy! -- Laura Transcript of Interview with Jenny Milchman Laura Brennan: Jenny Milchman is an award-winning, critically acclaimed novelist who writes un-put-downable thrillers. Her debut novel, Cover of Snow, won the Mary Higgins Clark Award for best suspense novel of 2013. All three of her novels published to date, including Rune Falls and As Night Falls, have been Indie Next picks. Jenny interviews thriller writers for the Next Steps radio show and I am delighted that she agreed to be on the other side of the microphone for this chat with me. Jenny, thank you for joining me. Jenny Milchman: Laura, thank you for having me on. LB: Before we get into your books, let's talk a little bit about you. I understand that your folks were a little worried about this whole writing gig. JM: Yes! More -- not even worried as much as, what would a writing gig even mean? I was always wanting to be a writer, that was kind of the goal from the beginning. And I loved reading, as most writers do. And it seemed a natural outgrowth of my childhood. But it wasn't even, "Should you do this? No." It was more, "What would this even mean?" And then when I was a sophomore in college, my parents got to that point where they had to ask what the point of this expensive degree was, I told them that I wanted to be a poet and live in the woods in a log cabin of my own making. And they pointed out that I had never really picked up a hammer, and our country is not that nice to its poets anyway. And they said, is there something else you can imagine doing? And since there was, we went with that. LB: And that thing was psychology. JM: It was. And I practiced for 10 years, yes, as a psychotherapist in a rural community mental health center. LB: It's so fascinating, because you're not the first or even the third author I've spoken to who has gone into psychology. What do you think is the connection? JM: I think there is a connection, I really do. And, to a certain extent -- I wanted to be a poet, I didn't have the kind of books that I wound up writing in mind when this whole desire to be a writer but put it aside thing happened. And it didn't reawaken until I was a psychotherapist practicing in this rural clinic, and I had this very scary case. And the case was a little, blonde, five-year-old, adorable cherub of a child whose mother had brought her in because she had just killed the family pet. And it was almost as if life was a suspense novel. And I sat down and just to deal with this overwhelming case,