Interview : Heather Graham

FOR many novelists (and their publishers), creating a series character for readers to follow through multiple books can offer security for years to come.

- Andrew F. Gulli

For some, it can even sustain entire careers. However, that kind of conventional wisdom never fully resonated with best-selling author Heather Graham, who for the last thirty-four years has continued to introduce unique characters in more than 150 books across different genres, establishing herself as one of this generation’s most successful writers.

In the early 1980s, after the birth of her third child, Graham made the decision to stop working at a job that would take her away from her children, and as a result tried her hand at writing. She sold her first novel, a romance titled When Next We Love, in 1983. Yet a successful romantic novel was just the beginning, and Graham went on to explore the paranormal, vampires, horror, suspense, thrillers, and even historical mysteries. One of the keys to her success has been this very versatility as an author, which keeps readers and critics guessing at what she’ll come up with next. She is also as prolific as they come, with eleven trilogies, several series, a slew of collaborative works, and dozens upon dozens of standalone novels. But whether she is tracking an elite group of investigators with paranormal powers as they solve historical crimes in her Krewe of Hunters series, or plumbing the minds of Civil War-era vampires in her Vampire Hunters trilogy, Graham always surprises, entertains, and tantalizes.

In 2013, Graham introduced New Orleans antique shop owner Dani Cafferty and former cop turned PI Michael Quinn in Let the Dead Sleep. Subsequent novels in the series have brought more antiques and ancient art with unusual qualities, presenting the crime-solving duo with increasingly baffling mysteries in which the past and present collide. And through the author’s vivid depictions, the Big Easy itself competes as another character.