Author Spotlight: Heather Graham

Reviewer: Bethany Quesnell

To understand why I am a fan of Heather Graham, you should probably know a little bit about me and how I became acquainted with her books. I have been an avid reader since the second grade when I read The Flim Flam Man. As an elementary schooler, I mostly read whatever was age appropriate – historical fiction (loosely historical, mostly fiction) and fairy tale-related plots, for the most part. In middle school, I became addicted to Mary Higgins Clark and the art of suspense thrillers (this is probably the reason I can’t watch suspenseful movies any more). My early high school years were filled with books that I thought were important; I tried to read as much classical literature as possible, including Robinson Crusoe, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Fahrenheit 451, and so on. That ended my sophomore year when I read To Kill a Mockingbird for class and came to my mom bawling my eyes out. I was crying for no real reason; To Kill a Mockingbird isn’t exactly sad. My mom listened to what had happened and said, “You need a fluff book,” and handed me a romance novel.

Thus, began my love affair with reading for entertainment. Ask any of my friends what kind of book I am reading, and they will probably tell you, “It’s a smutty romance novel.” They are rarely mistaken. However, there is still – deep inside of me – an awkward preteen with a love of action and suspense. I usually get my adrenaline fix at the movies, but sometimes romance novels do not require enough energy to keep my attention (one can only read about moody dukes and appropriately misbehaving ladies for so long before one falls asleep). My mother also solved this problem for me – she gave me a Heather Graham novel.

Heather Graham is an author of Paranormal Romantic Suspense. She has written over 200 books (No, I have not read all of them; I haven’t even read one book from each of her series) and has been honored with awards from colleagues and booksellers alike for her writing. The first book my mother gave to me set me down in the middle of her Krewe of Hunters series – a special division of the FBI who solve mysteries and/or murders that have paranormal aspects, usually by using their own paranormal talents like talking to ghosts. I loved that she could set up so many peripheral characters that made me curious about their stories, all while keeping me engaged in the suspense at hand.

Graham loves the water (she is a certified scuba diver), ballroom dancing, and travel;these loves are very present in her books. Her descriptions of various settings make me feel as if I am standing on-location in a movie, watching events unfold with a clarity that makes me believe I’ve actually been to New Orleans or the Florida Keys or Los Angeles, even though I’ve only visited one of those places. Her stories will often take you to the water for one reason or another, either to clarify a character’s thinking or to reveal an important fact about whatever the characters are chasing – a large portion of her books take place not far from large bodies of water like oceans or the great lakes, but even rivers figure prominently in her books. It’s really cool to see an author’s interests reflected so strongly in the pages of her books, especially an author as prolific as Heather Graham. You can tell that she hasn’t spent hours doing research and then forcing that research into her writing; she knows what she’s writing about and it makes for a much easier read.

My favorite part of each of her books is that Heather Graham will make you think hard about the world her stories are set in – you will appreciate parts of cities that you hadn’t considered and you will think more openly about the idea of ghosts – and she helps you appreciate that love can be found even in the darkest of times. (That’s right! I still get my smutty romance! This is what it’s like to have your cake and eat it, too.)

Interested in reading her work? Graham is still releasing books. She released Pale as Death in August of 2018, Ghost Walk in September of 2018, and is set to release three books in October, one in November, and two in December of 2018.