And our Sue's Clues Mystery Author is:

Our Mystery Author this round is Jennifer Crusie. A familiar name to many readers, Jennifer has in recent years been writing best selling novels as a co-author. For the first time in six years, she is releasing a book solo. Many fans are excited and will be excited to know there are more to come.

Below, Jennifer shares with us about herself and her writing. Be sure to visit her at her website: http://www.jennycrusie.com/

1. Tell us about your family. It must be very interesting to have a bestselling novelist in the family?

Which family? My family back home doesn't read much except for my Dad, so they're proud but not really interested. My daughter is my business partner so she's very involved in publishing and has a much better understanding, and she's very proud but practical about it; she knows the business. My adopted family—my best friends Anne Stuart and Lani Diane Rich and Lani's two little girls—know all about writing because Anne and Lani are writers, of course, and one of Lani's girls writes short stories and books (short ones) now. It really depends on whether people are readers or not.

2. Do they read your books?

My dad does. Lani and Anne do. I don't think my daughter can; it takes all her time to manage everything while raising two babies.

3. I was poking around your website and noticed the tarot cards in the background. Have you ever had your cards read?

I read my own, or sometimes Barbara Samuel and I trade readings. I have a lot of decks mostly because I think they're so beautiful. However, I'm a big believer in free will, so the thing I find most interesting about tarot readings is my reaction to them. For a while I kept getting the Death card which means change, and the Tower which means explosive change, and I was always so happy, which was a good indicator that something needed to change in my life. But I don't believe they foretell the future. I think the future is ours to make.

4. I also see you like to collage. When did you start collaging? What is your best collage? And your website is a bit of a collage. Did you design it?

I made collages in high school and then in college as an art major. I sort of lost it along the way, and then began to collage for the books when I was doing the copy edit for BET ME. Now I wouldn't do a book without one. I think my favorite so far is the one for Mare Fortune in THE UNFORTUNATE MISS FORTUNES, but it might be the one for MAYBE THIS TIME. I love the spooky blue vibe for both of those. Joelle Reeder of Moxie Girls Designs did the design for my website and I love it; she's fantastic. http://moxiedesignstudios.com/.

5. Do you have other hobbies?

Crochet. Painting. Sewing. Baking. Go Fish with the kids. Movies. Many things.

6. It also looks like you host a movie night on the weekends? How does it work? Can anyone join in?

Oh, absolutely. The Popcorn Dialogues is a project that Lani Diane Rich (aka Lucy March) and I designed so that we could study what makes good romantic comedy and improve our writing. We're doing a historical survey of the genre, starting with It Happened One Night. We watch at 7ET every Friday and tweet during it at #PopD and anybody is welcome to join in. Then when the movie is done, Lani/Lucy and I do a podcast which goes up on the site the next afternoon on The Popcorn Dialogues blog. (http://popcorndialogues.com/) The movie schedule is at the top of the page under "Now Playing." We're both loving it and we've learned a lot.

7. When did you decide you wanted to be a novelist?

Like every reader, I thought about it, but I didn't get serious about it until I had to read 100 romance novels as research for my PhD. I was so blown away by the genre that I stopped writing my dissertation and started writing romance novels and never looked back. Still no PhD, but twenty novels now.

8. MAYBE THIS TIME is your first solo book in six years. Why such a long time?

I hit a dry spell where I couldn't write. I was panicking about that when I met Bob Mayer at the Maui Writers Conference and he said, "We should collaborate." We did three books together starting with DON'T LOOK DOWN, and it was a great experience, writing with somebody who's so good at something I know nothing about (action adventure).

After we wrote the first one, Eileen Dreyer asked me to be part of an anthology with her and Anne Stuart, and we made it a collaboration instead of three separate stories, THE UNFORTUNATE MISS FORTUNES. Then I wanted to work with Lani and a friend of hers, Alyssa Day, so we started DOGS AND GODESSES, but Alyssa had to drop out, so we invited Anne in and had a wonderful time. Then Bob and I did AGNES AND THE HITMAN and WILD RIDE, both of which I love, and suddenly I wanted to write solo again. Whatever I'd lost came back. I still want to do collabs, but I have six solos lined up, so it would be fitting them in around those books. No idea when.

9. And how is it co-writing a novel? It must present certain challenges and benefits...pros and cons, if you will?

It depends on who you're writing it with. Bob and I were pretty intense, heavy-duty plotting, lots of discussion. The collabs with two female romance writers are different because we all write the same genre, so they were easier, bouncier. But I learned a lot more collaborating with Bob. So it's all good. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

10. With the advance of technology, it was only a matter of time that we would have such things as E-reader, Kindle and the Nook. Do you have one.

I have an iPad and I love it. Easiest reading ever.

11. What impact do you think this will have on publishing for authors? Is it only a matter of time before having a book printed on paper becomes the novelty?

I think the e-books are another format like hardcover, trade paperback, and mass market paperback. I think it's a really valuable format, I can easily see it becoming as common as the other formats, but for many reasons I don't see it wiping out print.

12. Tell us about your new release, MAYBE THIS TIME?

MAYBE THIS TIME is my version of Henry James' Turn of the Screw, or what would happen if a governess were sent to a lonely house that might be haunted to deal with two disturbed children in modern times. I pushed the date back to 1992, but things still change radically from the original because the world has changed so radically in the hundred years between the two books. So it's the story of Andie in southern Ohio, raising these two kids and dealing with her ex-husband (the children's guardian who hired her) and her current fiance, plus a host of relatives and ghost professionals who turn up. I had a great time with it.

13. What is next? Any works in progress you can share with us?

I'm working on the first in a four book series about Liz Danger, a ghostwriter, who encounters four murders the year she's thirty-three. The first is LAVENDER' BLUE, about a wedding; the second is REST IN PINK, about a little girls' beauty contest; the third is PEACHES AND SCREAMS, about a county fair pie contest; and the fourth is YELLOW BRICK ROADKILL, about a high school production of The Wiz. They're written in first person which is a big departure for me, but I'm enjoying the change and the challenge.