FAQs: About JoAnn's Books

What are you working on now?

I’m having a lot of fun writing a new small-town series for HQN Books called Honeymoon Harbor, which is set on Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula, not far from where we live. It’s loosely inspired by Port Townsend, a historic Victorian town we love to visit.

The first story, a novella, was published as an ebook April 1st, 2018 and the first novel, Heron’s Landing, will be out May 22. Then there will be another, not yet titled novella in September, ’08, and a Christmas novel, Snowfall on Lighthouse Lane in October. The books are very much like my Shelter Bay, Castlelough, and Coldwater Cove books, so if you enjoy those series, I think you’ll enjoy visiting Honeymoon Harbor.

Is Shelter Bay a real place?

Shelter Bay is a blend of a few Oregon towns: the hills are from Astoria, in the very NW corner of the state at the mouth of the Columbia River on the Oregon/WA border.

The resident whales, sea wall, and cliffs are from Depoe Bay, where, when I was eighteen, my high school sweetheart bought me a white bag of saltwater taffy, then proposed at the sea wall across the street. Decades later, that taffy store is still there and we visit often.

The bridge is from Newport, although I made it a drawbridge in One Summer. There’s also a touch of Banning, which is on the south coast close to the CA border. Some of Shelter Bay’s sea stacks and the touch of Cape Cod are from Cannon Beach.

Rainbow Lake, outside Shelter Bay is loosely based on Diamond Lake, one of my favorite places growing up. We’d swim in the lake, then drive up to Crater Lake and play in the snow in our swimsuits. The waterfall at Rainbow Lake is a blend of the many beautiful waterfalls in the Land of Umpqua and Multnomah Falls.

Will you be writing any more books in Shelter Bay?

Although I LOVE Shelter Bay, which is set where my high school sweetheart proposed and where we visit often, I’m going to be concentrating on Honeymoon Harbor, my new small town series for HQN,  which is set on the Washington Peninsula, not far from where we live now. But, I never say never. 

Is Coldwater Cove a real town?

No. It’s modeled after Port Townsend, a historic town on the Washington peninsula. As is Tribulation, where The Return of Caine O’Halloran was set.

Did the book titled Fallen ever get published?

Yes, but the publisher changed the title right before publication to No Safe Place.

What ever happened to Ricochet, the book excerpted in the back of Breakpoint?

Ricochet was going to be the fifth and final book in my High Risk series, but when I came up the idea for my Shelter Bay series, my publisher decided to begin the Shelter Bays with Sax’s story.

So I moved him from the bayou, where the scene in the back of Breakpoint takes place, to Shelter Bay.  The title was changed to The Homecoming.  That scene remains much the same; he’s still Cajun (his grandparents moved to Shelter Bay after a hurricane destroyed their home and shrimp fishing business) and his dog now finds that bone on the Oregon beach. 

The Shelter Bay books still have military heroes, but deal more with the guys settling into life back home and, being more family-centric, have less murder and mayhem.  Lucas Chaffee’s story was On Lavender Lane and other characters from the High Risk books also show up in Shelter Bay from time to time.

Are readers ever going to find out the story of the mysterious Irishman who appeared in Shattered?

Eventually. He’s part of the Brennan Clan, so as I write their stories, he’ll be showing up. And let readers in on his secret. 

So many of your books feature food. Do you actually cook any of those meals?

Cooking is both a passion and a stress reliever, so I’ve made every dish that appears in one of my books. I do share recipes occasionally on my blog and Facebook pages, where I posted Chef Maddy’s braised chicken. It’s especially yum; my editor asked for the recipe and reported back that not only did she and her husband love it, she especially loved the way it made her house smell while it was cooking!

Speaking of recipes, when I turned in the one for Dillon’s steamed clams for the back of Sea Glass Winter, I used  # for pound. Unfortunately, a computer program at the publisher or printer deleted that symbol so now it reads 1-2 clams. Which would not make a very hearty meal! You need 1-2 pounds of clams. 

In The Homecoming, Sax is referred to as a Sergeant. How could you write about a SEAL and not know that sergeant isn't a rank in the Navy?

I really do know that. My dad was in the Navy. Unfortunately, somehow in editing, a line about the car dealer putting the wrong rank on the car sign —the same way he purposefully misspelled Sax’s last name —got cut from the final version of the book.

Do you know you have the wrong number of players on the basketball team in Sea Glass Winter?

I do. And I have no excuse for that. Not only did my family attend many Suns games while living in Phoenix, I wrote several books on a laptop during my son’s basketball practices. Somehow, for no reason I can explain, I wrote six starters and six backup players, and although I read that manuscript out loud to my husband for a final proofing, neither of us, nor my editor, copy editor, nor Penguin/NAL/Signet proofreaders caught the error until I spotted it re-reading the book after it came out.

So, although it was too late to change the already printed books, I asked that the team be changed to five players in later editions. Which was done. Unfortunately, a line about a total of twelve players didn’t get changed in the Read Pink reissue of the book. So now five starters and five backup players add up to twelve. (I really can do basic arithmetic!) At this point, I decided I was really glad that I hadn’t become a brain surgeon or an airline pilot because at least my mistakes don’t kill anyone.

Alternate answer:  Good catch!  I purposefully put that mistake in to see how observant my readers are.  🙂 

Why does Sax's grandfather's name change in one of the Shelter Bay books?

It accidentally changed because I lost my book of series character names and places while moving  with three dogs in a motorhome, crossing ten states in nine days to beat the moving van.  I was writing on the trip temporarily went brain dead and made a mistake, which no one caught until an eagle-eyed reader, with afar  better memory than mine, emailed me.

 I always swear I’m going to keep detailed online files, but many times I don’t get around to adding names, dates, and places, which is why my trusty old journal, which was always next to my computer worked well.  Until I lost it.  

In the dedication of Honeymoon Harbor’s Summer on Mirror Lake, you thank your husband, a builder of beautiful wooden boats. Do you mean models? Or full-sized boats?

Full-sized. Mr. R and I grew up in a town built around the largest body of fresh water in Oregon. The lake was part of all our lives, and he fell in love with wooden boats in Middle School continuing to study them as long as I’ve known him, which has been since High School.

One time, while in Washington State, we visited Port Townsend, a Victorian town on the Olympic Peninsula that would later become the model for Honeymoon Harbor. There’s a wooden boat building school there, which is where he got the idea to build a boat. Which he did. That led to another. Then another. And more. When we built this house, not far from Port Townsend, one of the three garage bays was separated off for a boat building shop. 

 Because the town was settled by Scandinavian loggers and fishermen, and because Jarle is such a bold, fun character, I decided it would be fun to have him to challenge Gabe to build a Viking boat. 

As I was plotting the book, I took voluminous notes while Mr R spent many evenings explaining boat building, even going into tall ships, which I didn’t need to know, but he loves. (As an aside, tall ships, including the one used in Pirates of the Caribbean, come to Port Townsend’s wooden boat festival every year.) During that time, he remembered that Maryland-based Chesapeake Light Craft —from whom he’s bought some of his wonderful boat kits—had a faering featured on their website, and John Harris, owner and CEO of Chesapeake Light Craft proved SUPER helpful with information about Gabe’s faering.