1. Your suspense varies from gothic-lite to time traveling adventures to mystical reincarnation. What are some of your favorite tropes to explore in mystery? 

I love to write the sort of thing I love to read!  Some of the tropes that especially draw me are the baby left on the doorstep, the imposter among us, something hidden in plain sight, a situation thought long gone that rears its head in the present day, or—likewise—a person long gone who is not really gone (ghosts?!).  I love stories of memory (especially faulty memory), big old houses (and doll houses), and unquiet spirits who need help to move on.

2. What are some of your favorite suspenses that influenced you or got you into the genre? 

I read and loved all the Trixie Belden mysteries when I was a girl, as well as other mystery/adventure series (Robin Kane, Donna Parker, Judy Bolton—these last were from my mother’s generation; I found a trunk of them up in my grandmother’s attic and spent our summer visits lying on her porch, lost in the stories!).

I loved books of magic and mysteries and families with lots of kids who had lots of adventures—such as those by Edward Eager and Elizabeth Enright.  I loved series set in the past, especially All of a Kind Family, by Sydney Taylor, and the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace.  As a teen I also read gothic romance by Victoria Holt, Philippa Carr, and Daphne Du Maurier.  All of these tales and so many more helped shape my imagination.

3. Before you became an author, you were a Fulbright scholar; what did you do with your scholarship in Germany? 

I lived in Bonn, which at that time was the capital of West Germany, and studied at the Universität-Bonn.  I took classes in the German poet Goethe, as well as the German novelist and short story writer, Heinrich Böll.  My special paper was called Das Amerikabild Deutschlands—about the depiction of America in post-WW2 German short fiction. 

In addition to German literature, I also studied a variety of other subjects, including Shakespeare Sonnets, Beginning Russian, and Ballet.  It was a wonderful year and a half of study and travel, and the friends I made then are still very dear to me now!  We enjoy visiting each other, and I always make a point to speak German whenever I’m in Germany so that I don’t lose my language skills.

4. It was there that you began your first suspense novel, Time Windows, what inspired you?

It was a very cold and rainy weekend that winter in Bonn, and I wanted a break from studying German poets and reading German short fiction.  I wanted something fun and easy to read—in English!– but I had run out of English language books.  This was before there was Amazon.com or any online bookstore that would send new books to my door—so I was stuck.  I reminded myself that I always said I was going to write a book some day… so maybe I should just start writing the book I wished I could be reading right then!  I knew it had to have a big old house with secrets from the past, and an old attic, and a big old dollhouse, and maybe a ghost…. And I spent all weekend writing to entertain myself… and that story eventually became Time Windows.  I worked on the book on and off the entire year, and when I left Germany, I had a full draft.

5. You were also a Writers in Residence for the Princeton Arts Council, what did you do in that position? 

That was an honorarium granted to people who were working on books.  I applied by sending in some chapters from Time Windows, and explained I was working on a companion book.  My work was deemed worthy, and I was given some funding to help me pay rent and buy groceries while I wrote.  (The work became Pale Phoenix!) 

6. Your mysteries are also unique in that they usually involve a historical aspect, what draws you to that sub genre instead of a contemporary? 

I’ve always had an affinity for the past.  I used to play ‘time travel’ when I was a girl—urging my friends to dress up in ‘old fashioned clothes’ so we could play school in a one-room prairie schoolhouse, or travel in covered wagons!  

William Faulkner’s famous quote ( The Past is not dead; it is not even Past”) has always resonated with me.  The idea that what has happened long ago shapes everything in our present intrigues me and drive much of my fiction.

7. Is there a different sort of research process that goes into historical mysteries? Or does the mystery aspect override the historical? 

Writing stories that take place in the past requires me to do the same sort of ‘world-building’ that writers of sci-fi or fantasy need to to—in that the world I’m showing the reader is NOT one they are familiar with.  So the details of how the world works (issues of the day, politics, society, home and school) and what things look like (clothing, vehicles, foods) and how people think all need to be detailed.  If I write that my character woke up in the morning, leaped out of bed, got dressed and ran to the kitchen for breakfast… the reader will picture herself doing that –but if I want them to envision my character living on the Kansas prairie in 1878, for instance, I need to give details that SHOW that, so the read knows what to picture.  A trundle bed, a sod house, a long dress covered by an apron, corn pones fried in a pan on an iron stove…

All the historical details paint the setting of the story and the era informs the way the characters think and act—but the mystery still requires the additional work of plotting, laying clues, holding the reader in suspense whether the story is set in a bygone era or today.  

8. You also wrote a few mysteries for an American Girl mystery series, how was working for the brand different from working on your own novels? 

 I’ve written six books for American Girl characters, and it was a lot of fun!  But writing adventures for already established characters is very different from writing books where the characters are entirely my own invention.  I had to read all the books about Julie in 1970’s California, Kit in 1930’s Depression Era Ohio, and Rebecca in 1915 New York before I started writing my own tales because I needed to understand their families, their personalities, and their values, etc.  Then I had to come up with my own original mystery for each girl.  Writing mysteries for American Girl characters felt a bit like writing episodes for a TV series; the characters are already set up for the writer, but the new adventure—or episode—is the writer’s own invention.

9. PaperQuake takes place close to your current home in Northern California, and deals with very real fears one could have in a state known for its earthquakes.

Yes, I have a big fear of earthquakes, and I gave that fear to my character Violet!  I had only recently moved to the San Francisco Bay Area when the big earthquake hit on October 17^th 1989.  It was terrifying.  I was with my year-old baby boy on that day at the p public libray, and we had to shelter under a table while the books rained down off the shelves.  We emerged, shaken, to a series of aftershocks—and the news that a section of the Bay Bridge had fallen into the bay. Now I’ve lived in California over thirty years, and have felt many other quakes, but none as big or scary as that first one.

10. In fact, all of your novels place big importance on personal aspects of coming of age, family secrets and societal fears as it does with fighting supernatural hauntings and . Is that part of the greater appeal of suspense? 

My books always focus on character growth of my main characters and their families, which usually comes about through bringing secrets from the past to light in the present.  

Another quote I have loved for a long time is by Chief Seattle, capturing my own feeling that all that has happened before still matters, and is with us, even now:  “ There is no death, only a change of worlds.”   

Readers get a two-part story from me:  the mystery itself needs to be solved, or the ghost laid to rest, or the secrets revealed–but the characters are always transformed in some way by solving dealing with all the problems of the story.  They deal with whatever the story throws at them, and move on–changed.

You can find out more information on Reiss’ books and bio on her website: https://www.kathrynreiss.net/bio