It was delight writing those scenes for both of us.Gi Hallmark | The Children’s Book Review | AugThe Virals Series The boys are every bit as important to the stories as Tory, so a novella felt like the right place to give our readers a look inside their heads, too. We thought it would be neat to give the reader a glimpse inside the guys’ heads, and revisited this idea in Exposure, the fourth Virals novel. What made you decide to do that in only one of the e-books and what was it like writing from all of those perspectives? You wrote Shift (one of the Virals e-books) from Shelton, Hi, Ben, Kit and Temperance ’ s perspective as well as Tory ’ s. But they are still by no means for the faint of heart! Virals novels are firmly grounded in forensics and are every bit as complicated mysteries, but some of the gore is removed. I knew that kids were jumping right into the adult books, but some subjects – like dismemberment – might be a little strong for young readers. Many people watch Bones, and come to my book signings. In the end, I think it worked out quite well.Ī lot of my readers were approaching me and asking if my adult books were okay for their teenager readers, and I was a little uncomfortable with giving a blanket yes, because they do involve violent death. They are simply mystery novels with teenage protagonists. I think most adult readers also enjoy Virals because it’s not an attempt to write down to a younger level. I tried very hard not to change how I create a story. Not especially, because the Virals novels remain every bit as tense as my adult work, and really do work for readers of all ages. Obviously your Temperance Brennan novels are quite grisly and upsetting in places, do you find it easier on an emotional level to write the Virals books? We have a TV agent and a feature film agent, and can’t seem to decide what we want! Brendan would love to do a full-length film, but I’ve had a great experience with TV with Bones, and would like to see that happen again. We’re in discussions right now, but still the early stages.

I read an interview you did in 2013 about discussing Virals for the TV screen, is that still under discussion? What if humans could contract a weaponized form of parvovirus? The rest is history.

We’d frantically learned everything we could about the virus when he was battling the disease, and the idea sprang from there. We’d never heard of it, but quickly learned how deadly an illness it can be for a puppy. When we were in the Turks and Caicos my son adopted a dog for me (thanks), but Turk fell sick almost immediately with parvovirus. What made you decide to have a supernatural element in the books at all?īrendan actually came up with the idea to add a supernatural element, or a piece of “grounded fantasy,” as my editor likes to call it.

Virals series