February 10 – 16: “What’s love got to do with it?”

How can love drive the plot of a thriller story, or in the words of Tina Turner: What’s love got to do with it? That’s the question of the week for ITW members Allison Brennan, Saralyn Richard, Khaled Talib, J. H. Bográn, Frank Zafiro, Lisa Harris, Natalie Walters and Mitch Silver. Scroll down to the “comments” section to follow along. You won’t want to miss it!

Award-winning mystery and children’s book author, Saralyn Richard, is a writer who teaches on the side. Her books, Naughty Nana, Murder in the One Percent, and A Palette for Love and Murder, have delighted children and adults, alike. A member of International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America, Saralyn teaches creative writing at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and continues to write mysteries.

Allison Brennan is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of forty books and numerous short stories, including the Lucy Kincaid series and the FBI Mobile Response Team. She recently relocated with her family and pets from Northern California to Arizona and is looking forward to baseball Spring Training.

Natalie Walters is the author of Living Lies and Deadly Deceit. A military wife of twenty-three years, she currently resides in Hawaii with her soldier husband and their three kids. Natalie comes from a long line of military and law enforcement veterans and is passionate about supporting them through volunteer work, races, and writing stories that affirm no one is defined by their past.

Frank Zafiro was a police officer in Spokane, Washington, from 1993 to 2013. He retired as a captain. He is the author of numerous crime novels, including the River City novels and the Stefan Kopriva series. He lives in Redmond, Oregon, with his wife Kristi, dogs Richie and Wiley, and a very self-assured cat named Pasta. He is an avid hockey fan and a tortured guitarist.

Lisa Harris is a two-time Christy Award finalist, a Christy Award winner for Dangerous Passage, and winner of the Best Inspirational Suspense Novel twice from Romantic Times. She has over thirty novels and novella collections in print. She and her family have spent sixteen years working as missionaries in Africa. When she’s not working she loves time with family, photography, and heading into the African bush on safari.

Khaled Talib is a former magazine journalist and public relations consultant. He lives in Singapore. SPIRAL is his fourth novel.

Mitch Silver was born in Brooklyn and grew up on Long Island. He attended Yale (B.A. in History) and Harvard Law School (“I lasted three days. I know the law through Wednesday, but after that…”). He was an advertising writer for several of the big New York agencies, living in Paris for a year with his wife, Ellen Highsmith Silver, while he was European Creative Director on the Colgate-Palmolive account. They have two children and live in Greenwich, Connecticut. The Bookworm, Mitch’s second novel following In Secret Service, just came out in paperback. His upcoming thriller, THE APOLLO DECEPTION—about what did (and didn’t!) happen on the moon 50 years ago—will be published this fall. Mitch also won the American Song Festival Lyric Grand Prize for “Sleeping Single in a Double Bed.” His blood type is O positive.

J. H. Bográn is an international author of novels, short stories and scripts for television and film. He’s the son of a journalist, but ironically prefers to write fiction rather than facts. His genre of choice is thrillers, but he likes to throw in a twist of romance into the mix. He currently divides his time as resource development manager for Habitat for Humanity Honduras, teaching classes at a local university, and writing his next project. He lives in San Pedro Sula, Honduras with his wife, three sons and a “Lucky” dog. His motto is “I never tell lies, I only write them!”