BookLife Author Spotlight: A Noble Sin Q&A
How did you approach A Noble Sin as a sequel?
In thrillers, there's often a temptation to create a static character and build a long-running series around them. It's a proven formula, but I'm seeing that readers now want more—they need substance with their suspense. I loved discovering Emma Noble in Fortunate Son. She has this great combination of humor and awkwardness, but underneath there's the unmistakable makings of a hero. There's also pain lurking in her past. In this sequel, we explore those shadows together.
A Noble Sin is about Emma's evolution. Readers want heroes who grow and change across a series, and that's exactly what Emma does.
You've had a number of careers such as jazz singer and salesman. Did your experiences with any of them help when developing the series?
Writing is much like jazz. It comes from improvisation and experimentation—freeing yourself to find something interesting in the space between. I listen to the sound writing makes—searching for the unexpected note that makes it sing. I strive for sentences that sound like music.
And the thousands of sales calls I've been on? I'm not sure there's a better school for character development than that. I've learned how to read people—their tells, their contradictions. While jazz taught me rhythm and improvisation; work taught me human nature.
What do you think a good thriller has to do?
We all know the pillars of a thriller—pace, plot, and twists. But, for me, my favorites have a foundational character. Cliche characters beget cliche thrillers. But present me with a real person with human emotions that I care about and pull them into something dangerous and relentless? I can't turn away. I'm drawn to people who feel more human and less "larger than life." I love thrillers where heroes bleed on the page and evil leaps down your throat.
And a good thriller never cheats. No easy getaways. No deus ex machina that saves the day. I want to see a hero trapped in a locked box, forced to figure out their own escape. No mouse chewing on the ropes to freedom.
The best thrillers are intelligent and complex. They make you think and feel something—deeper meaning with the mayhem.
How do you imagine readers at this moment will connect to A Noble Sin?
We're living through a time when heroes are falling from pedestals. Authority figures, institutions, people we trusted—they're being exposed as flawed or fraudulent. Readers are questioning everything they thought they knew about the world.
Emma's story hits that nerve directly. She discovers her father—her one hero—isn't the man she believed him to be. That's not just a plot point. That's the emotional reality many people are living right now. Who deserves to be on a pedestal? What happens when we realize they aren't who we expected? How does that change who we are and how we relate to the world?
Emma has to grapple with what it means to be thrown completely off your axis. To rebuild your understanding of yourself when your foundation crumbles. That's what makes A Noble Sin more than just a thriller—it's about the very real experience of disillusionment and discovering that the hero you need... might be yourself.
When can readers expect the next Emma Noble book?
I'm deep into the third Emma Noble story. It will take readers from the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia to the Moskitia jungle of Honduras. What makes this one special? It revisits some of the evil from Fortunate Son in a way no one is expecting.
This time the consequences are global, and Emma faces her most dangerous trial yet—a life and death decision that will change her trajectory forever.
I can't wait to share what's next for Emma. For updates on upcoming releases, feel free to visit my website.
