“Law of Attraction” comes out in paperback today!

My first novel, “Law of Attraction,” comes out in paperback today!  If you like SVU, I think you’ll like my book, which covers many of the issues Mariska deals with every week.  After all the nitpicking I’ve done about SVU’s realism, I tried to keep the story as authentic as possible.  Check it out and tell me if you think I succeeded.  🙂

You can buy “Law of Attraction” at any of these outlets:

Amazon      Barnes & Noble     Books-a-Million      Indie Bound

The Backstory:

As a prosecutor of sex crimes and domestic violence in D.C., I saw heartbreaking tragedies, acts of shocking evil, and vulnerable victims every day— but also moments of real heroism, true love, and healing.  Given the stories I witnessed, the rich cast of characters I worked with, and my lifelong love of fiction, I had to write a book.

In Anna Curtis, I wanted to create a character who people would relate to and root for, and a story that would both entertain and teach about the way the criminal justice system works—and doesn’t work.  My day job and my writing were mutually beneficial: my work gave me interesting material, while writing my fictional characters made me understand my real-life witnesses more deeply.

I focused on a nightmare shared by domestic-violence prosecutors: losing a case and setting free an abuser who eventually kills his victim.  I wanted to explore the reasons why so many women go back to boyfriends who hurt them.  And I wanted to create a strong, smart female prosecutor who would be particularly empathetic to her witnesses because she shared some of their experiences – but whose romantic life would suffer from those same experiences.

For the sake of my wonderful mom and dad, I need to stress that Anna is not me and her family is not my family.  Similarly, all events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance between my legs and the legs on the cover is purely coincidental.

Law of Attraction was written in the spaces of my life between prosecuting and mommying.  I started writing the book while I was pregnant with my first son.  Back then, I would wake up at 5:00 a.m. and write for a couple of hours before heading to work.  I wrote at night and on weekends.  I carried a laptop everywhere and wrote wherever I could find a horizontal surface (and preferably a latte).  After my son was born, I wrote during his naps and after bedtime.  Now, the sound of a softly snoring baby triggers a Pavlovian response in me to start typing.