January, 2003

Where the idea came from:

Not sure exactly when it came to me, but I thought of the ending first. That’s what made me want to write this story.

One Line Synopsis:

Guy stealing from his company survives plane crash and reevaluates his life.

Journey to publication:

I already had two love stories published and I was working on the third follow-up. Right when I found a publisher to pick up that third story (resulting in what would be my fourth book, Three Roads Home), I began writing The Second Thief. Makes sense, huh? I was dying to write it so I wrote it all the way through. I had no aspirations to become the next Nicholas Sparks. I wanted to branch out and do other types of stories. I finished the story and gave it to an editor at Moody Publishers. Since they were just starting to publish fiction again, the timing worked out well.

The Response:

The response was mixed, which I loved. Some readers loved it (and still talk about it with me). Others hated the ending, not getting it.

My Thoughts:

This was the first novel of mine that had a big twist at the end. The story as a whole is like a Twilight Zone episode–it’s short and the main impact is at the end. I look back on a story like this and consider the writing and structure to be rudimentary. But it was huge in the fact that it deviated from the love story path I was going down. Without this book, there might not have been a Sky Blue or a Ghostwriter.

Interesting Fact #1:

The plane crash depicted in this book is based on Flight 232 that went down in Sioux City, Iowa.

A New York Times bestselling author offered to edit this book for me. And I said no. The book was edited, of course, but this author wanted to really change a lot of it. To me, that felt a little like getting plastic surgery. This story was mine just like the face I look at in the mirror. Not perfect, of course, but still mine.