What about your life besides your law career do you believe influences your writing the most?

Everything. Every career, every relationship, every adventure, every feeling I've ever had helps make up my characters. My law career certainly has been a major factor, but life's experiences in general have played an important part. One thing that is such a part of writing fiction is creating whatever you want, making the characters be and do what you want, and then watching them take on a personality of their own and you sometimes lose control of them. That often changes the storyline, which is usually a good thing, but it keeps the characters true to who they really are.

Please briefly describe your journey from deciding to write to reaching publication.

I initially wrote "The Advocate" just to see if I could write a book. I had always wanted to write a novel and so I just sat down every morning and wrote. It took me six months and it was so much fun I decided to see if I could get it published. I bought a book with names of agents and publishers and I mailed out over one hundred of the worst query letters ever. Okay, maybe not the worst...I've read some of the worst. But nevertheless, it was not good. I received only rejections. Then, due to a family illness, the manuscript sat on a shelf for three years. During that time, although I didn't do any writing, I attended some writer's conferences and learned a lot about writing, including how to write a query letter. When I was finally able to spend more time on the novel, I did some editing and then at one of the writer's conferences I submitted thirty pages to a publisher and she asked for my manuscript. And here I am.

Are you already working on the next project?

Yes, I'm about three-fourths of the way through my next S.O.B. legal suspense novel.

Burrell's debut legal suspense, The Advocate, takes readers on the journey of Sabre Orin Brown, a juvenile court attorney. Sabre's passion to find answers uncovers just how obscure and treacherous the truth can be.

Andrew Peterson, author of First to Kill, calls Burrell's novel "A brilliant debut...."  Rita Lakin, author of Getting Old is a Disaster, touts that "Teresa Burrell's The Advocate has introduced a fresh new heroine in the mystery genre..."   I would say this is one debut lovers of legal suspense will not want to miss!

Contributing editor Debra Webb is the author of more than seventy novels of romantic suspense. Her current release, Everywhere She Turns, from St. Martin's Press is set in Huntsville, Alabama, where she lives with her husband, two daughters and three dogs. Though Debra spends a good deal of time mentoring, she can most often be found ferreting out ways to bring unique and fresh qualities to her writing.