Welcome to BookView Interview, a conversation series where BookView talks to authors.
Recently, we interviewed V. S. Kemanis about her writing and her soon-to-be released book, Indelicate Deception, a beautifully crafted and deeply moving story about a woman’s quest for the truth. (Read the review here.)
V.S. Kemanis was raised in the East Bay Area of California in a family with six amazing siblings and parents passionate about politics, social issues, theater, and music. Mealtimes were often raucous, stimulating, intellectual, and fun gatherings in a household full of family and interesting guests, musicians, actors, artists, professors, and university students.
With a B.A. in Sociology from UC Berkeley and a J.D. from CU Law Boulder, Kemanis pursued a fulfilling legal career in New York, where she prosecuted street crime and organized crime, argued criminal defense appeals, conducted complex civil litigation, and served as supervising editor of decisions for the busiest state appellate court in the country. She’s also an accomplished dancer of classical ballet, modern jazz, and contemporary styles, finding a place for dance around the edges of everything else, continuing to perform, teach, and choreograph.
Short fiction by Kemanis has appeared in anthologies and magazines such as Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, The Crooked Road Volume 3, Mystery Magazine, The Best Laid Plans, Me Too Short Stories, Autumn Noir, and Let Me Tell You About…, among others. She has published five collections of short fiction including Your Pick: Selected Stories, winner of the Eric Hoffer Award for best story collection and a Montaigne Medal finalist. Her six novels of legal suspense in the Dana Hargrove series draw on her personal experience in criminal law, juggling a high-powered professional career with family obligations. In a departure from the Dana Hargrove series, her upcoming novel, Indelicate Deception (release date April 5, 2025), is an intergenerational tale of family drama and personal identity.
Author Website: https://www.vskemanis.com/
Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/contributors/v-s-kemanis
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/V.S.-Kemanis/author/B00ALIX7NI
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/V.S.Kemanis.Author/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vskemanis/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG7p6X2YGvt6ZgGFhZRSDFw
How did you get your start as a writer?
I’ve always loved to write, and as an attorney, did plenty of legal writing. In the ’80s, working in New York’s criminal justice system, I started writing fiction evenings and weekends for the creative outlet. A few stories were published in literary journals in the ’90s and ’00s. My experiences in the courtroom and knowledge of criminal law crept into my stories and eventually led to the development of my novels featuring fictional attorney Dana Hargrove.
Tell us about the Dana Hargrove series.
The first novel, Thursday’s List, takes place in 1988, when Dana is a rookie prosecutor in the Manhattan D.A.’s Office. Recognized for her talent, she’s tapped for a team investigating cartel money laundering and is unwittingly drawn into an ethical dilemma involving close friends with ties to the suspects. The subsequent five novels take place several years apart, from 1994 to 2022, finding Dana at very different stages of her career and family life. Courtroom drama, police procedure, interesting characters, fascinating criminal cases, and ethical conundrums abound. Here’s the chronology, but they’re all standalones, so you can read them in any order: Thursday’s List, Homicide Chart, Forsaken Oath, Deep Zero, Seven Shadows, and Power Blind (finalist, Readers’ Favorite Award for Best Legal Thriller).
How did you develop the story for your upcoming novel, Indelicate Deception?
A few years ago, I left Dana to pursue a completely different project. Indelicate Deception draws on my background in the East Bay Area of California in the late ’60s and early ’70s, a time of great social change: the Vietnam War, the draft, the hippie movement, feminism, and evolving ideas about male/female roles in the family. With the benefit of maturity and reflection back over fifty years, I’ve come to see how societal change has impacted my life as well as popular culture, family structure, and values. These ideas came to fruition in a story about a young interracial couple, Roy and Lenore, and the subtle influence of multiple factors—class, upbringing, politics, religion, race—undermining their relationship. Roy raises their daughter Caty, who grows up imagining an idealized version of her mother Lenore. Much of the story centers on the mystery of Lenore’s disappearance. As a young adult, Caty undertakes a search and makes surprising, revealing discoveries.
What do you hope readers will take away from this story?
As with every novel, I hope readers enjoy the story, find it suspenseful, and become lost in the escape that fictional worlds offer—the reason we all like to read a good story! I also hope that readers will be drawn into the lives of the characters, relate to the challenges they face, and gain insight into the external and internal motivators of their behavior.
What advice do you have for aspiring fiction writers?
Read widely, both inside and outside your usual picks. Make time to write every day. Develop a tough skin and don’t let rejection get you down. Write because you love it, not out of hope for money or fame. Learn from constructive criticism and ignore mean-spirited comments (a few trolls inevitably surface in customer reviews!) Before publishing, read your stories and novels out loud, slowly. It’s the best way to hear flow and cadence and to find mistakes in grammar and typos.
What is next for you?
A new story collection! I always write a few stories during the breaks between writing novels, and over the past several years have gathered a book-length collection of fourteen stories. Most of them have appeared in magazines and multi-author anthologies. Check my website or follow my social media posts for book news as it happens.
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