Interview with Author Mara Purl

Q: Milford-Haven just keeps growing and growing. First it was the radio drama. Now it's three novels in a row! What else is planned for Milford-Haven?

A: Milford-Haven is in development for television, and we're planning expansions for our web site as well, so it's more interactive. But at this point I'm focusing on the novels. There will be twelve in the series and book three is the newest - called Child Secrets.

Q: The radio drama was one thing - this book series in another altogether!! What do you think listeners can get from the radio drama that they can't get anywhere else?

A: The radio drama has the richness of the cast - twenty superb actors who brought such color and variety and nuance. And it has the layering of sound - distant ambient sounds like birds in the trees outside or the distant hum of a ship's engine; then near sounds - the clatter of a spoon stirring the coffee in Sally's Restaurant, or the gentle way Miranda closes the door so as not to waken Zack. And of course the beautiful, haunting music - we hear a sultry saxophone line and we know Cynthia's about to appear in something satin she's almost wearing, or we hear a highly-charged syncopated beat and we know Zackery's on his way to making an important decision.

Q: What about the books? The Milford-Haven novels seem so much more complex and involving because you're delving into areas that can only be reached with the written word.

A: I am finding this process most interesting. I keep getting deeper and deeper. I feel that in What the Heart Knows (Book One) I got my ankles wet, in Closer Than You Think (Book two) I began to swim, and in Child Secrets (Book Three) I go diving, literally and figuratively. This was the idea of doing the fiction – to delve much more deeply into the characters and their lives. It's a tremendous expansion beyond script writing, where the depth is mostly in subtext.

Q: There was so much detail in Child Secrets - psychological, and technological. Seems like you did a lot of research.

A: I always do a lot of research - it's the backbone for everything I write. I did do an exceptional amount for this one! I read about child development for over a year and wrote detailed backgrounds for each character. But I also researched off-shore oil rigs by reading technical manuals and by working with five experts in different fields: a naval architect, an underwater submersible designer, a commercial diver, and two underwater cinematographers.

Q: Did researching such different kinds of issues affect your style of writing?

A: One minute I was like Danielle Steel, writing about complex relationships with interwoven paths and secret desires; then suddenly I was like Tom Clancy, writing this high-tech underwater explosion where every bolt and valve had to be correct, but the forward momentum of the story had to be unimpaired.