Interview with David Burnett, Author of Child of a Swan

What’s the story behind the story? What inspired you to write Child of a Swan?

The television series Blue Bloods revolves around Frank Reagan, Commissioner of the New York City Police Department. Frank lives with his father, a former NYPD commissioner. His oldest son was a police officer who was murdered while on an undercover assignment. His two younger sons are both police officers; one is a sergeant and the other a detective. The sergeant is married to a patrol officer. Frank’s daughter is an assistant district attorney.

What would happen, I wondered, if Frank had another child, one who wanted to be a writer, an artist, or a musician? After all, not all children want to join the “family business.” Child of a Swan reflects Lyssa’s attempt to follow her own heart and not be co-opted by family pressure.

What’s your favorite genre to read? Is it the same as your favorite genre to write?

I seldom read what I write. My novels are almost exclusively romance or women’s fiction. I read mystery, suspense, and crime novels.

What books are on your TBR pile right now?

I just completed The Last Sister, a story in which an FBI agent attempts to solve multiple murders in a small Oregon town. I have begun The Vanished Days, and I am awaiting the publication of Christopher Reich’s new novel, The Tourists, in which a CIA agent searches Paris for his missing fiancée.

What scene in your book was your favorite to write?

When Lyssa is in seventh grade, she is given the opportunity to take a high school-level course—either English or math. She made her selection the previous spring, with her mother’s consent, before her mother passed away. When her father discovers she is not enrolled in high school English, he demands that the principal transfer her.

The scene in the principal’s office is one of my favorites. Lyssa can tell her father is about to explode, and when he does, she thinks surely the principal will knuckle under. The easiest thing—the safest thing—would be to blame her mother for the schedule and acquiesce to her father’s demand. But math is much more interesting than reading or writing. I enjoyed writing about her indecision and her eventual choice to defy her father and follow her heart.

Do you have any quirky writing habits? (lucky mugs, cats on laps, etc.)

Sorry, no quirks! I write at my computer in my home office. Boring, I know!

Do you have a motto, quote, or philosophy you live by?

More and more, I’m attracted to the French proverb: “Praise the Lord of all, drink the wine, and let the world be the world.”

If you could choose one thing for readers to remember after reading your book, what would it be?

Lyssa’s words from her graduation speech come to mind: “It is your life,” I said. “It belongs to you and no one else—not your family, your parents, or your friends, and the choices you make should be yours, and yours alone.”

David Burnett is the author of the new book Child of a Swan

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