That led me to the idea for the next mystery in the series, and The Paris Affair came into being.

I wanted to stay in that world, and I hoped readers would too. I poured my young musician self into her and relived the experiences of practicing and performing-piano, not violin. I’d forgotten how much fun it was to be in feisty Theresa’s head. All I wanted was for her to have a chance at being out there for readers. I dusted off, revised, and edited the manuscript of The Mozart Conspiracy and self-published it. But I’d written that first YA mystery with the intention of continuing a series, and readers asked me about it all the time.Ī year ago, in a much-changed publishing landscape, I decided it was time to relaunch Theresa properly into the world. That’s when I wrote Anastasia’s Secret.ĭon’t get me wrong-I’m extremely grateful for the six contracts I had for my adult and young-adult historical novels. Even though I’d written the sequel to The Musician’s Daughter as my option book for Bloomsbury Children’s, my editor asked for something different. When I was being published by the big 5 publishers back when the publishing world was a different place (2005–2012), it seemed my editors only wanted stand-alone historical novels. But the world had other plans for me for a while. I think ever since then I’ve wanted to write a series of my own. This may not seem so exciting to many people, but I grew up reading Nancy Drew, the all-time-most-popular middle-grade mystery series.

Anastasia's Secret by Susanne Dunlap