by Anna Shura
May 17, 2021
Danielle Girard is a USA Today Bestselling Author of no less than three series and four standalone novels. Girard is the woman behind Dr. Annabelle Schwartzman from her Dr. Schwartzman Series as well as each leading lady in her Rookie Club books. The newest series to join Danielle Girard’s bookshelf is her Badlands Thriller series. Book 1, White Out was released in 2020, and book 2, Far Gone, will be out June 15, 2021.
In our interview, Girard speaks of her personal writing story expressing, “I never imagined being a writer. I mean, I’m the rule follower.” She was on track to go to medical school and ultimately found her way into writing while working in finance. Once Danielle Girard set her mind towards becoming an author, she never looked back. Now with 16 published books and a few more “in a drawer” Girard is a wonderfully prolific thriller writer.
Danielle Girard has clear goals for her writing as she works to build a universal conversation between readers and her characters. As a mother, Girard is increasingly aware of the world her children are growing up in, and she believes, “the real trick is that we’re not as different as we think we are.” She describes how she works to present multiple perspectives on the “bad guys” and shares her plans to discuss Native American culture in future books.
When Girard is not turning out a new book, she dedicates herself to reading as much as possible. She even has a spreadsheet to keep track of the books she reads, and often finds herself reading “between 60 to 80 books a year.” We talked about the next books on her reading list (there are quite a few) and her favorite authors.
AS
Well, if you don’t mind, let’s just jump in. The first question I have for you is, could you tell us about your latest novel?
DG
My latest book is coming out, actually, in exactly a month, right? It’s called Far Gone, and it is the second book in the Badlands thriller series. And basically, the book opens with a double homicide where a young woman witnesses, is hidden, but witnesses the murder and recognizes the voice of the killer, but not who he is. And she’s only 14. And she’s got some problems. So, she, rather than go to the police where she’d have to admit that she has been taking drugs, runs. …The book features three points of view. So it’s Hannah, of course, who’s on the run and is a troubled teen. And then there also are the same protagonists from White Out, which are the police detective, Kylie Milliard, and then a local nurse, Lily Baker. So it’s fun to be back with that that group of people.
AS
Okay, and when is it coming out again?
DG
It’s coming out June 15th, which is, I think, four weeks from tomorrow. It’s right around the corner.
AS
Great. Well, speaking of characters, I noticed that a lot of your books have some very strong female leads. And I am wondering, could you talk through your character creation process?
DG
Yeah, as a as a woman and … [a writer], I’m not saying that I don’t appreciate strong and good and bad characters of both genders. But I am drawn to sort of the multifaceted struggles, challenges of being a woman, right? If you want to be a woman, and you want to be a mother and have a career that is something that every woman I’ve ever met with struggles with. And so, I like to figure out, how do we balanced this? How do we support one another in the balance? Because we’re also not that good at that, ironically. And so, those things are questions I have explored my own life.
Therefore, I have my characters are exploring those questions as well. When it comes to developing character, I always feel like…I have to find a character for whom this plot is the worst thing that can possibly happen to her. So not just every woman doesn’t really want to face a murder, we understand that, or be kidnapped and go through some torture. It’s very specifically like, what is about her background or her story that makes this situation the hardest? Because then we get to see hopefully the broadest, most fulfilling character arc. The plot and the character come to be at the same time.
So for instance, my first book was Savage Art, and is about a an FBI profiler who was attacked by the serial killer that she was profiling. Basically, she was in the middle of a case she was a very autonomous woman who wanted a career but also had a young child. And for her, the ability to be a police officer… was integral to who she was. And so, what that that serial killer did was cut the tendons in her hands which meant [cutting] everything that she’s sort of known—you can’t be a working police officer without the use of your hands.
So she ended up off the job and trying to recuperate and gain the use of her hands and physical therapy and all that. But it was, for her, the worst scenario…the lack of her physical abilities made her feel diminished and angry. Those things for that character and plot are what I mean when I say they have to be two halves of the same ball.
AS
Absolutely. That’s a really interesting way of thinking about it as well. Now, this might be a terribly difficult question, but do you have a favorite character out of all the ones who have written?
DG
Oh, goodness, I can tell you have a favorite book cuz I do feel like every book gets better. I always feel the latest book is like, “Oh, that was the best book I’ve ever written.” So, I do have a really soft spot for Lily Baker, who’s been through quite a lot, and Annabelle Schwartzman. Those are the two main protagonists in the last two series who are women and who have survived something really awful. And so I think they have a place a special place in my heart not just being strong but surviving and being strong and having to sort of recreate their identity.
It’s hard because they’re like children a little bit. You’re not supposed to pick a favorite, but I would say those two probably are my favorites.
AS
That makes sense. Now, I noticed on your website, you have a lot of videos answering questions, so I wanted to jump off of some of those responses. I learned that you did not want to be a writer originally. Could you talk through how you found your way into your career now?
DG
Well, I never imagined being a writer. I mean, I’m the rule follower. And writing was not like a choice. It didn’t sound like a job to either my parents. So, I was pre-med, and I was accepted to medical school. And at the same time, my dad, who was an obstetrician gynecologist in San Fran in the Bay Area went through kind of a really difficult situation with a baby. They were not healthy when it was born. I watched him go through that, …and we’re very empathetic. He kind of couldn’t let go of the fact that this horrible thing that happened…I got to the point where I thought, I don’t know if I can do that…so I decided to take a step back. I did the second thing that we were allowed to do in my family, which is finance.
I met a woman who was a writer, and I just thought I was so it just sounded so magical to be able to create things, books and stories. And she kind of said, “Well, if you want to do it, you just have to sit down and do it.” And I was like, “Okay, that sounds so easy.”
And that was 25 years ago. …I obviously read plenty, but the idea that somebody was making those stories, I guess, there’s a disconnect there in my mind where I could be that person. So I kind of got lucky I met the right person. I did not love finance. I think a lot of people stumble into writing, you know?
AS
Yes, it’s a natural love for a lot of people, I think. And your description of not realizing who authors are when you’re younger was the same thing for me. I got older, and I was like, “oh, someone did have to write that,”
DG
Yes! “Somebody is doing this. What a great job.”
AS
I’m curious, what was writing that first book like for you?
DG
It was sort of magical. … it was fun to write, and I’m a fast writer, which isn’t always to my benefit, because I think sometimes I move faster than my brain can kind of figure out exactly where I’m supposed to be going. So I do a lot of ten steps forward and then eight steps back.
I’ve obviously gone through periods where it’s been hard to write, and I stare at the screen. And that’s not fun. But mostly, when it’s just me in the book in a quiet space, it’s sort of magical. I’ve gotten a little bit smarter about how I do it. But it’s always been magical.
AS
Of course. There are several books you wrote before you published your first book. Did you keep any of the elements from those books and then put them into subsequent novels? Or did you just let them be?
DG
Yeah, no, I let them be. The first book in particular, there were some things about that I really liked, and I thought were quite clever. They’re definitely less clever. It’s not like I feel ideas are hard to come by. So the idea of going back and unearthing those and digging through for that, whatever the kernel was that started the magic, it feels like maybe more effort than it’s worth. …
So they are in a drawer. I think at some point I will pull one out at least read a few pages before I can’t stand it anymore. There was a story that I wrote for my MFA. I ended up taking the basic of that and making it into one clean shot. [It was] non-suspense, but there was an element about a woman’s husband who dies in their home and how that all happened I really loved. It was very compelling. So I did incorporate that into a clean shot. That’s the kind of closest I’ve done to stealing from unpublished material.
AS
All right. Well, you have several series now, and I noticed that you talked about letting each book in a series stand alone. I thought that was a unique perspective for series writing. Could you talk through how would you write each book to be complete within itself? And how do you structure writing a series?
DG
I feel like even if you’re a series lover and a series reader, there’s always a year between [books] unless you come upon a series later and then you can read them all at once. You generally get one a year. If you’re somebody who reads 50, 60, 100 books a year, by the time you get to the next book in the series you have to have forgotten a little bit about exactly who the character is and what her situation is. And so, I feel like it’s a trick because you don’t want to be redundant for those people who do remember reading all at once. …But, you have to sort of remind us where we are and the situation, whatever suspense or story or murder we’re solving.
There’s maybe a bigger arc, like in the case of a Schwartzman series, the larger arc is that her ex-husband is still out in the world. People didn’t feel like the arc of their stories was complete without the whole arc of the series. So if you’d read, for instance, Expire, you wouldn’t have gotten it. It wasn’t linear, and it’s fair to say you wouldn’t gotten really a complete story because so much of that started in those earlier ones. But with the Rookie Club series, for instance, those books each feature a different woman in law enforcement. This group was formed in in San Francisco, I imagine in the late 90s or early 2000s, where there were just weren’t as many women in law enforcement. And so, each of those stories lives by itself; its own world. If you read them, when you get to the next one, you just know, “oh, that is that character from the last book,” or “I already know this thing has happened.” But you don’t need that information to go for it. I think that’s the trick of writing a series as a standalone and also writing a series. I mean, there are those series that you want to read [together]. I don’t know if you’ve gotten into A Court of Thorns and Roses. It’s this phenomenon right now. If you had missed the first one, you’d be like, “what is happening in the middle of the third one,” but in in books that I read, I like to think that they are self-contained. The whole story is there in the single book. …And I think that’s what readers want. But you can’t really leave them with a big mystery cliffhanger because they don’t like that. And I did do that in Expose. We solved the mystery, but I left them dangling a little bit. And you hear about that from readers.
AS
Got it. Now along those lines, how do you decide when to finish a series once you’ve kind of gone through these arcs?
DG
That’s interesting, too, because I feel like in the Schwartzman series, that was a natural ending point because she finally gets rid of her ex-husband. And then there’s sort of a conclusion with a budding romance in that story. But I do feel like there are other books left to write. Sometimes I feel like it’s not even our decision necessarily. It’s more of a publisher thing, “Well, that was great. Now, what’s new?” There certainly used to be a lot of people who wrote lots and lots and lots of books in one series, but it seems to be less common now. So I was happy to leave [the series] in a place where I felt like the characters were in a happy place. You hate to leave them in the middle of some existential crisis. But I love Annabelle Schwartzman so much. I definitely feel like there’s plenty left to do with her. And I’m open to going back to it. I mean, it’s all about how much time you can find to write. How many books you can write?
AS
Well, I think I can speak on behalf of readers and say that they’d gladly accept any more you have to give there.
So, I noticed you had kind of a big video overall talking about your goals as a writer, and you discussed having universality and that shared experience we can collect from reading and writing. And I’m curious, how do you approach working to appeal to that wide and diverse readership in your books?
DG
Obviously, it’s hard as a writer not to express your feelings about the state of the world in your books, and mine are definitely there. You know, I worry. I mean, there’s obviously plenty of things to worry about. And I have, actually my daughter’s about your age, and then I have a younger son, so I do worry about the world that we’re leaving. …That we’ve created for this next generation, for your generation.
I feel like the real trick is that we’re not as different as we think we are. One of the things I’ve tried to do is to make people who we sort of look at and think are not likable, necessarily. I don’t know that I’m going to ever make, for instance, in Chasing Darkness, I’m in the point of view of a pedophile. Now, you’re never going to necessarily think, “oh, go Jerry! I hope your life turns out great.” But you might read his perspective and realize that he suffers from a disease. It’s not easy to be Jerry, and Jerry doesn’t want to be Jerry. We might just have a little bit more compassion.
For instance, in our justice system, how we deal with situations like Jerry it’s the same for all the villains. No villain is real. I mean, even the most gruesome serial killers, and I don’t normally write about them, even they, it comes from something. No one is born a serial killer; something’s gone wrong with the way children are raised… I just crack the seal…And I can just create a little tiny superficial fixture in the way they look at the world. But I believe that’s the first step to us auditing, like maybe we all have to be a little responsible for how those people, the criminals, grow up. Maybe we need to figure out a way to get involved a little sooner rather than just lock them up for a million years. Not to say I don’t believe that we need to lock them up. Because I do. They’re dangerous. I don’t want them on the streets any more than anyone else. But there’s a lot we could do, at least to save some of them, that we don’t do.
AS
That definitely makes sense. And just seeing different perspectives, I think is a really unique way that a writer has power to do that in the world. So I’m glad that you pointed that out. Are there any perspectives that you haven’t covered yet that you are interested in covering in the future?
DG
Well, so I actually am in the third book in the Badlands Thriller series. There is a woman who is Native American. She was born in reservation. There’s not a lot of diversity in North Dakota, as you might imagine, but there are other Native American populations. She is a science teacher at the high school, and I would like to delve into how she has married the spirituality of her upbringing, as well as the difficulties of reservation life, the way that the Native American tribes have been treated and the problems of alcoholism. So many things I’d like to address in this in this character, although the story, of course, is not really about Native American life. But it gives us an opportunity to look at it. I’m in Montana, we have a lot of Native American tribes here. But I grew up in San Francisco where I didn’t have a lot of experience with Native American tribes. It’s a little tricky.
So in this western series, I was in the point of view of Harris who’s a black detective, and I talked to a lot of people and did a lot of research. I didn’t ever feel hesitant about being in his point of view. I feel like as a fiction author, that is sort of what we have to do. You stand in somebody’s shoes, and you try to look at the world the way they do. It’s a little more sensitive now. I mean, as a straight white woman, if I only wrote straight white women that’s a pretty boring book, right? …I’m very aware of making sure that I do it in a way that is not offensive but is educational. And hopefully, like I said, just one person maybe looks at somebody a little differently because of something I’ve written…
AS
Absolutely. To move into a little bit more of a fun direction here, here at The Strand we’re pretty big Sherlock Holmes fans as original publishers. And as you’re probably aware, Sherlock has his classic deerstalker hat. So I’m wondering, what would be your defining detective accessory?
DG
Oh, my goodness. That’s a really interesting question. I feel like it’d be some sort of weapon. Maybe something small like a pen that becomes a small knife. I don’t know why that’s my reaction: arm myself. But something that doesn’t appear like what it is, I think, for sure. Something that might look innocuous but be deadly would be fun.
AS
Very cool. Yeah, I see that. Also, obviously, you are a big reader yourself. And I have a couple questions around that. First of all, this might be difficult once again, but if you could pick your favorite author or a handful, I’m curious to know who they are.
DG
Oh, I mean, I have so many. I also have so many friends I love so much. So anyway, I’ll give you my favorite authors who are not my friends first, and then I’ll give you my favorite authors who are my friends.
I love Frederick Backman, and I just finished Anxious People. I think he’s amazing. The Book of Longings is upstairs waiting for me. That’s Sue Monk Kidd. I love her. Obviously, these are literary fiction writers. And then in terms of my genre, I read kind of everything. I love DJ Palmer. I love JT Ellison. I have to look my spreadsheet to see what I’ve read lately that I was just like, in love with. Because of course I have a spreadsheet for that.
AS
You have a spreadsheet of spreadsheet of future reads? Past reads?
DG
I keep a spreadsheet of all of the books that I’ve read. I’ll give you Jamie Mason, and Kathleen Barber is amazing. And Angie Kim. But then this year, I read The Invisible life of Addie LaRue. I had never read V.E. Schwab before. I love Neil Gaiman. I just read The Graveyard Book again. Anyway, I do read a lot. I read 110 books last year. And that was partially because of COVID of course, because we couldn’t do anything else. But normally I do read between 60 to 80 books a year. So I’m always reading, and I love our genre. But I would say at least a third of my reading is more literary fiction. Because that feels a little different than when I’m reading suspense or a thriller. I’m like trying to figure out who did it and how are they set it up? And it’s a little bit more like looking inside the machine versus when it’s a literary fiction.
AS
Right. Now, what is next on your reading list? What’s next for the summer?
DG
So what do I have to finish? I have so many books upstairs. I just joined Book of the Month Club, which I’m sure I did not need to do. The next thing on my list is The Last Thing He Told Me, which I’ve heard a lot of things about. Also, Long Bright River by Liz Moore. Those are a few. Unfortunately, I also have book buying problems. So I have a lot of books upstairs waiting for me.
AS
That’s okay. We support that problem. Well, one final question here as we’re wrapping up. Now, I know you have a book coming out, but what’s next? What’s after that?
DG
I do have a book coming out, and then I’m actually working on a standalone that kind of gripped me last spring. I tried to ignore it while I was finishing up Far Gone. I’m just I’m kind of taken away by it. I can’t really say much more about it other than it’s set in Boston, which is new for me. My son started school in Boston. So suddenly, I spent a little time out there. There’s so many writers, so many writer friends out there that I was like, “this is kind of a fun place to set a book.” So I set it in Boston, and it’s a little bit of a departure for me. It’s a bit more of a psychological thriller, and a little less, my books tend to have a pretty big police element, you know, procedural element, and this one has a little bit less. So I’m really excited. But I’ll have to finish it and see if it’s any good.
AS
That is very exciting. I’ll put it on my list already.
DG
Well, hopefully it’ll be out before you graduate!
AS
Thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it!