“My Book, The Movie” — The Evan Delaney series

Marshal Zeringue, who runs The Page 69 Test, has a new blog series: My Book, The Movie. He asked me to write an essay on who I would cast as the characters in the Evan Delaney series.

Here’s a taster:

Here I go, stepping into a bear trap.

I’ve always avoided being pinned down about who should play Evan Delaney. I write about her in the novels: She’s a tomboy who doesn’t know that she’s beautiful. She’s athletic, has a quick laugh, a quicker tongue, and a sharp sense of humor.

The books are fast-paced thrillers set in southern California. And when the Winnipeg Free Press reviewed Kill Chain, it said, “You just want to see what Rachel Weisz could do as Evan Delaney, a Santa Barbara freelance journalist whose father has gone missing.”

Rachel Weisz is fabulous. It’s a kick to hear that somebody sees her as Evan. Others have said they picture Sarah Michelle Gellar and Sarah Connor—meaning Linda Hamilton in the Terminator movies. And not one of those actors is the Evan of my imagination.

Here’s the wonderful thing about fiction: After I write the book, readers do creative work of their own, and imagine the world of the novel fresh in their own minds.

But if I had to pick a big-screen actress to play Evan, I’d go with…

Read the rest at My Book, The Movie, or at Campaign for the American Reader.

If Cousin Tater baked Evan a cake

From Cakewrecks.

Book club questions: Evan Delaney

Recently I’ve been receiving questions from readers who are discussing my novels in their book clubs. This is great, and I’m happy to answer as many questions as I can. And I’ve decided to post some of those questions and answers here. I’ll start with this one:

China Lake is our book discussion this month. The name Evan has created much interest, as it is a male name as opposed to female. Yes, I know so are Hilary and Evelyn, but it appears none of our readers have come across a female Evan, and I have been charged to find out, why Evan?

Why Evan? To begin with, I wanted a memorable name, one that was less than common and a bit unconventional. Still, I knew my character was going to be something of “the girl next door,” so I didn’t want her name to be terrifically exotic. She also thinks of herself as a tomboy, but I didn’t want a standard woman’s name that gets shortened to a man’s nickname — Sam, Charlie, and so on. I thought: how about a traditionally male name that can have a female nickname? Evan gets called Ev and Evvie by her friends and family.

And Evan is her middle name. Her first name is Kathleen. In my mind (it’s never been explicitly spelled out in the novels) Evan was the name of a beloved family member, which the Delaneys gave their little girl as a second name with the idea that she’d go by Kathleen or Kathy. But she appropriated Evan for herself.

And after all that, I actually met a girl named Evan. So I decided that if it can be done in the real world, it can work in a novel.