Date Published: 12/1/2013
Historical Fiction
Skylar Dewitt has been ostracized her entire life due to her grandfather’s well-known sympathies with the Nazis. But now her grandfather’s body has been recovered in the Netherlands in an area famous for being a Nazi killing ground. Why would her grandfather be buried in a place legendary for assassinations of resistance members? Skylar jets off to Holland in search of answers about her grandfather’s demise. Along the way she finds long-lost family and old friends but will she solve the mystery of what happened to her grandfather? And maybe she discovers something more valuable than resolving any mystery could be: herself.
Interview
What is the hardest part of writing your books?
I mostly write suspense or mystery stories. There
comes a point in these stories when the entire mystery needs to be solved. This
is the most difficult part for me: resolving the mystery in such a way that the
reader is surprised. I don’t want the resolution of the story to be obvious but
I want there to be enough clues that the reader has a good idea of what may
happen.
What songs are most played on your Ipod?
This really depends on my mood but while writing Buried Appearances, I created the
following playlist.
Blood Brothers by Bruce Springsteen
In My Blood by Black Stone Cherry
Ghosts That We Knew by Mumford & Sons
Ik Kan Het Niet Alleen by De
Dijk
Bijna Waar Ik Zijn Moet by
Blof
Wake Me Up – Acoustic by Aloe Blacc
Inside Job by Pearl Jam
Abschied Nehmen by Xavier Naidoo
Do you have critique partners or beta readers?
I have three friends that I use as beta readers.
They are from three different nationalities and very different backgrounds.
This is great for feedback as each reader looks at the book entirely
differently. I just started this process and am really enjoying it.
What book are you reading now?
I read between 5 and 7 books a week for book
reviews for my review blog. For my personal enjoyment, I’m reading The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary
Clinton to the New Frontiers of American Power by Kim Ghattas.
I love reading nearly everything under the sun but I especially enjoy
historical (auto)biographies or memoirs.
How did you start your writing career?
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write. About
10 years ago, I tried starting a writing career while on sabbatical from my
daytime job as a commercial lawyer. Due to monetary concerns, however, I didn’t
stick with it. When I stopped practicing law a few years ago, I started a
B&B but I was still searching for career fulfillment. My husband suggested
I self-publish and that was it!
One of my colleagues made a strange comment on
9/11. He said: “Imagine if you were in the building and escaped. You could just
walk away from your life.” At the time, I thought he was crazy. As a decade
passed (and I became a decade older), I slowly became obsessed with the idea.
What would cause you to walk away from your life? Listening to Bob Seger’s song
Roll Me Away, the idea came back in my head and wouldn’t leave. I had to write
a story about a woman walking away from her life. This idea is slowly
transforming into my third book. I’m afraid it will be a very difficult book to
write, but I’m excited about the challenge.
D.E. Haggerty
I was born and raised in Wisconsin but think I’m a European (a cloggy to be exact). After spending my senior year of high school in Germany, I developed a bad case of wanderlust that is yet to be cured. After high school I returned to the U.S. to attend college ending up with a Bachelor’s degree in History at the tender age of 20 while still managing to spend time bouncing back and forth to Europe during my vacations. Unable to find a job after college and still suffering from wanderlust, I joined the U.S. Army as a Military Policewoman for 5 years. While stationed in Heidelberg, Germany, I met my future husband, a flying Dutchman. After being given my freedom from the Army, I went off to law school. I finished law school and moved to the Netherlands with my husband and became a commercial lawyer for more than a decade. When I could no longer handle the law, we upped stakes and moved to Germany to start a B&B. Three years after starting the B&B, I got the itch to try something else and decided to return to one of my first loves: writing. Between tennis, running, traveling, singing off tune, reading and playing lawyer part-time, I write novels and poetry, blog about everything under the sun and review books.
Contact information
Twitter handle: @denaehaggerty
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