Q&A with New York Times Best Seller Susan Mallery - Part 2

Today we're going to continue our interview with New York Times best selling author, Susan Mallery about her latest book, "Only Mine".

What draws Dakota and Finn to each other?
At their core, Finn and Dakota both value their families more than anything.  Finn thinks he wants to be done with his familial duty.  He wants to get his brothers through college so he can return to his days as a carefree bachelor, but he will learn that he's not that guy anymore.  Somewhere along the way, he grew up.  At heart, he's a family man.

You love to write about families, such as the Hendrix triplets.  Why?
I was an only child, so I love writing about the big, boisterous family that I never had.  Triplets are an extension of that - three sisters who have been together since birth.  Each of the triplets has her own personality, but the experiences these three women have shared throughout their lives make them as close as it's possible to be.

You're known for both the depth of your characters and for your humor.  Do both come naturally to you?
I think men and women falling in love with each other is inherently hysterical.  Who came up with that bright idea?!  Men do everything they can to avoid emotion, and yet they're irresistibly drawn to women, who overflow with emotion.  When I get teary-eyed over a commercial, my husband looks at me like Im completely nuts.  There's this constant push-pull between men and women that never really goes away, and it will always be funny to me.

Most of my storylines are not funny in and of themselves.  My characters deal with some very serious issues in their lives, but their ability to find the humor says a lot about their resilience.  I like people in real life who can laugh at themselves, and I like that in characters, too.

Do you plot your books before writing?
I do a lot of plotting in advance, which means I can write the story quickly, which further means that I don't lose interest.  For me, the creative rush is highest during the plotting process, and the actual writing of the book is more about getting the story down on paper.  I've tried writing without a plot, and it just doesn't work for me.  I enjoy the aspect of surprise, but I dread revisions.  Even when a book is thoroughly plotted, though, the characters can sometimes surprise me.  I was sweetly surprised by a secondary romance in ONLY MINE.