QUESTIONS FOR THE AUTHOR

1. What kind of research did you have to complete for this book? Did your own college experiences influence the story you tell in Just Too Good to Be True?

I spoke with a lot of college athletes and young ladies who dated athletes, many who were my students when I was teaching at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville. When I was in college I had several close friends who were athletes and I remember how much privilege that seem to bring them, but I also saw the pressures that went along with being a superstar player.

2. Camryn Bledsoe is such a strong, multilayered female figure; was she inspired by someone you know? Do friends or family members find their way into your novels, or do you keep your fictional worlds separate from your personal life?

Carmyn is like so many women I know and have met. I started with the premise of how much a mother loves her son and how she’s willing to do anything to make their lives better. I have a great relationship with my mother and I know she would do anything for me and for my sisters. I usually don’t include things from my personal life into my novels; I’ve been lucky to have great friends for a number of years and wouldn’t do anything to harm those relationships.

3. What did you know about abstinence programs, such as the one you describe in the novel, Saving Ourselves? Did you have any experience with a group like this one?

I haven’t been involved directly in abstinence programs but I know they exist. Most of the programs I’ve heard about start in churches or as the platforms of young ladies competing in for the Miss America title. While teaching at the University of Arkansas I heard of a student athlete who was saving himself for marriage. I still think there is a lot of pressure on both male and female students to experiment with sex once they enter college.

4. Do you identify with a particular character or characters in the book?

This was a book where all of the characters had to grow on me because I didn’t really know them. I think I identified with Brady’s desire to do the right thing most times and how he wanted to please his mother and make her proud.

5. Are you working on a new novel now? Can you share any details about it?

I have a new novel coming out shortly after this Just Too Good to Be True. The title is Basketball Jones and the book is more what my fans have come to expect of me, with the main character Aldridge being “kept” by a star player in the NBA. Right now I’m in the middle of writing a novel slated to come out in the summer of 2009, which brings back Yancey Braxton, her mother Ava Middlebrooks, and some fun new characters. I’m having the time of my life writing it.