Allison Brennan's "Don't Open the Door"

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Allison Brennan believes life is too short to be bored, so she had five children and writes three books a year. Reviewers have called her “a master of suspense” and RT Book Reviews said her books are “mesmerizing” and “complex.” She’s been nominated for multiple awards, including the Thriller, RWA’s Best Romantic Suspense (five times), and twice won the Daphne du Maurier award. She lives in Arizona with her family and assorted pets.

Here Brennan dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, Don't Open the Door:

Regan Merritt is a former US Marshal who left her job after the murder of her only child and her subsequent divorce from her attorney husband. Regan is in her mid-thirties, close to her father, a retired Sheriff living in Flagstaff, Arizona. She moved back home after her son’s death and is putting together the pieces, but when her best friend and former boss, US Marshal Tommy Granger, is shot and killed as he’s leaving his house — after he leaves a cryptic message on her voice mail that he may reopen her son’s murder investigation — she returns to Virginia to find out what he learned that got him killed. In the process, she has to confront her grief, her ex-husband, and seek the truth about her son’s murder, a truth she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

I rarely envision actors when I’m writing, though sometimes when I’m done with a book I’ll see an actor who would be perfect as one of my characters. For me, I have an image in my head and run with that, rarely based on a real person. With Don’t Open the Door, I immediately pictured Lauren Cohan (Maggie from The Walking Dead) playing former US Marshal Regan Merritt.

First, physical looks — Regan looks almost exactly like Lauren Cohan. The same brown hair, the same green eyes, the same athletic build, the same smile.

But I have been a Walking Dead fan for years. Maybe even more than the physical similarities, it’s the way Regan and Lauren’s character Maggie move, communicate, think before they speak, protect those they love. Regan isn’t quite as hardened as Maggie, but she grieves like Maggie. They are both strong, confident women who loved greatly and lost what they loved the most.

Visit Allison Brennan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue