Please join us for a Q&A with Annelise Ryan, author of the Monster Hunter mystery series, including the recent BookBrowse Book Club selection The Beast of the North Woods.
Please join me in welcoming Annelise Ryan to the BookBrowse Community Forum. You may recognize this authorâs name from her Monster Hunter mystery series; the third book, Beast of the North Wood, was featured as an online book group selection a few months ago, and we had a lively discussion about it. Sheâs also the author of the Mattie Winston series, wrote the Mack Dalton series under the pen name Allyson K. Abbot, and has published several books under her birth name, Beth Amos.
Please use this space to ask Annelise questions about her work. As a reminder, to reply to an existing comment, click the grey Reply on the right side under the comment. To ask a new question, click the blue Reply button a little lower down.
I normally ask our visiting authors to tell us a bit about themselves, and then we pepper them with questions. In this case, I found that Annelise (aka Beth) had already posted an entertaining intro on her website that addresses many of the questions weâd typically ask. To avoid duplication and to avoid wasting her time, Iâm posting it here in its entirety with the authorâs permission. Enjoy!
Allow me to introduce myself. As you can see from this picture of me at the age of 6, I wasnât the cutest child. That, combined with the fact that I was always the new kid because my family moved a lot due to my fatherâs job, made it hard for me to fit in. Consequently, I spent a lot of time on my own and books became some of my best friends.
It was my love of reading that led to my love of writing. I first indulged my writing passion, as do many young girls, by recording my deepest, darkest, and most secret thoughts in a diary. But it didnât take long for my sisters to figure out where I hid it and how to pick the lock, so I quickly abandoned that project. Still, I was compelled to write. I dabbled with short stories and made quick enemies of many of my classmates when I got excited over theme assignments and essays. When I was seventeen I sent off my first short story. It was flung back to me with a kindly rejection letter at a speed previously unheard of in those days of snail mail. But Iâm nothing if not stubborn and I simply tried again. And again. And again. Thus began what became a very extensive collection of rejection letters, all of which I still have today.
It didnât take me long to realize that my dreams of supporting myself as a writer were about as flimsy as the lock on my diary, so I decided to pursue a career in nursing. At the age of 23, I had my son, Ryan. Somewhere in there I had a marriage or two, and a divorce or two (okay three, but whoâs counting?) and I worked at advancing my career and raising my son. Between the demands of career and motherhood I had little time left over for writing, but I stuck with it nonetheless, using every spare second I could find to write, and working my way toward making it into the Guinness Book of Records as the person with the greatest number of rejections.
I never sold any of the hundreds of short stories I wrote. My very first published credit was a personal essay in a national magazine devoted to hospice care. My payment consisted of three copies of the magazine it appeared in. Still, it was my first and itâs framed and hanging on the wall of my home office. I eventually switched my focus from short fiction to novel length. And finally, at the age of 40, I sold my first novel, COLD WHITE FURY, to HarperCollins. Two more paranormal suspense novels followed with Harper. During that time I managed to develop a flourishing freelance business as a book reviewer for B&N.com, and as a medical writer for a number of different entities and periodicals. After a while, I realized I didnât much like writing nonfiction because it made writing feel like work instead of fun, and it didnât leave me much time or energy for writing fiction, which was what I truly loved to do. So after five years I gave up the freelance stuff, went back to nursing, and focused on my fiction.
My first agent, Linda Hayes, (a woman I adored!) retired during that time and after several years of hunting for a new agent (with a few missteps along the way), I self-published two other paranormal thrillers. In 2008 I had the good fortune to sign on with Jamie Brenner and Adam Chromy of Artists & Artisans. They quickly sold the manuscript for the first book in my humorous Mattie Winston Mysteries, which I titled THE VICARIOUS LIVER, to Kensington Books. The book was retitled as WORKING STIFF and I was also retitled with the pseudonym Annelise Ryan (itâs a long story as to why, one Iâm happy to tell over a beer someday, but suffice to say I was working as an ER nurse by then and told people it was because I didnât want my ER patients knowing I spent my spare time thinking up clever ways to kill people.) The series, featuring a wryly cynical nurse-turned-deputy coroner in a small Wisconsin town went on for 12 books and spawned a two-book spinoff series called the Helping Hands Mysteries.
In addition, I also wrote the six-book Mackâs Bar Mystery series that launched in 2013 under the pseudonym Allyson K. Abbott (another beer and another story) featuring bar owner and amateur crime solver, Mack Dalton, who uses a unique neurological disorder known as synesthesia to help figure out who and how-dunnit.
After twenty books with Kensington and a pause during the year of Covid, I started a new series with Berkley called the Monster Hunter Mysteries, featuring a cryptozoologist named Morgan Carter and her dog Newt. This dynamic duo investigate deaths that appear to be at the hands/teeth/claws of killer cryptids (or are they?) in Wisconsin. The first book, A DEATH IN DOOR COUNTY, came out in 2022, followed by DEATH IN THE DARK WOODS, BEAST OF THE NORTHWOODS, and MONSTER IN THE MOONLIGHT (pub date 1/27/26.) A fifth book in the series is currently in the works.
Iâm retired now and not surprisingly, given my career choice, most of my novels have a medical flavor to them. In addition, Iâve dabbled in those areas of life that have always fascinated meâthe weird, the macabre, and the unexplainable, such as paranormal powers, cryptids, and extraterrestrial life. And thereâs always a touch of humorâsometimes more than a touch! So come along for the ride. I can promise you a good puzzle and a laugh or two, if not from my books then from that picture above, where, if you look closely enough, youâll see pencil marks that fill in the places where chunks of my hair were missing after I gave myself a haircut. (And to Momâthose glasses ⌠pink cateyes studded with rhinestones? What the hell were you thinking?)
Annelise: Thank you for posting this! Is there anything youâd like to add before we jump into our Q&A?
I think that covers it. Thanks for inviting meâI look forward to engaging with some of the members here.
Thanks again for being here! As alluded to above, your nom de reality is Beth Amos. Why did you decide to start using pen names? And I know you said that the stories behind your pseudonyms were long, but can you give us a hint about how Annelise Ryan and Allyson K. Abbott came about?
Also, when you switched your publisher over to Kensington, why did you stick with Annelise Ryan rather than return to your own name or choose a new one?
There is a short answer: the pseudonyms were marketing decisions. And because I was an ER nurse, there was also a smart aleck answer I often gave people who asked: I needed the pseudonyms so my ER patients wouldnât know I spent my spare time thinking up clever ways to kill people.
Here is the long storyâfeel free to skip it, though I think it does provide an interesting peek into the world of publishing and how publishers work and think.
My first three novels were published by HarperCollins in the late â90s. It was an exciting time for me as I thought my long-sought dream of becoming a successful, full-time writer was finally coming to fruition. But when my third book with them was in their publishing pipeline, which can last more than a year from when the manuscript is accepted to when the actual book comes out, the publishing industry was in a panic over this new thing called e-books. No one knew what kind of impact they would have. Some believed it would be the death of books and publishing as they knew it, others thought they would simply be an alternative way to âread,â much like books on tape or CDs, though they might well cut into the sales of the more traditional modes. The uncertainty had most of the big publishers buying up smaller ones and restructuring their houses, and the little publishers were scrambling to merge with one another to try to fend off the big guys. At HC, they decided to eliminate their mass market paperback division, which is where my books were, and either move those authors into the hardcover division or drop them. They were trying to trim their stable of authors and many of the midlist authors were the ones who were cut. I was midlist and I was dropped. This happened months before my third book came out and because Iâd been dropped, HC did no advertising, promotion, or distribution for the book. As a result, the sales were dismal.
My writing career screeched to a halt, and it got worse a year later when my agent announced she was going to retire because the business was getting too crazy. Suddenly, I had no agent and no publisherâback to square one. It took me seven years, several more books (two of which I eventually self-published), and one agent fired before I found an agent who was able to sell a book, the first in a proposed series, to Kensington. That was Working Stiff, book one in the Mattie Winston Mysteries, and the series went on for 12 books and 2 spin-off novels. But before that first book was published, Kensington informed me they wanted me to come up with a pseudonym because my real name, Beth Amos, was associated with dismal sales for my last book at HC and that might deter book buyers. They didnât want that sales record to impact the new series. Plus, the genre was slightly different as the earlier books were paranormal thrillers and Mattie Winston was more of a cozy mystery. Kensington also wanted to pitch me as a ânewly discovered author.â So, I came up with the name Anne Ryan initiallyâRyan is my sonâs name, and Anne is my middle nameâbut they thought that was too common, so I pitched Annelise RyanâAnnelise was my name in German class in high schoolâand they loved it.
Jump ahead about four years and my editor at Kensington said that heâd always envisioned a cozy mystery series in a Cheers kind of setting and could I come up with an idea for something like that? If you know Wisconsin at all, you know the idea of a bar setting isnât much of a stretch! I came up with the Mackâs Bar Mystery series, and Kensington liked it enough to contract for two books. But there was a caveat. The Mattie Winston books were at four books out with #5 coming soon and the sales were ok and increasing slowly but they werenât sure if that would continue. If the series suddenly stopped selling they didnât want that to impact the new âbarâ series. And vice versa. If the âbarâ series didnât take off, they didnât want that to impact Mattie Winston. So, they wanted me to come up with another pseudonym so they could once again pitch me as a ânewly discovered author.â
I wasnât crazy about this because it was a bit of a marketing and social media headache, but I went ahead and came up with a new name. I made a more strategic decision this time and picked the last name Abbott because it started with A and I knew that would put me at top shelf, eye level in the mystery section in most bookstores. And then I chose Allyson for the first name and threw in the middle initial of K as an inside joke because that made the initials for the new name AKA.
It was the move to Kensington (after being dropped by HarperCollins) that created Annelise Ryan. When I made the move to Berkley, they (thankfully) let me keep the name since the sales under that name were still doing well enough to provide some overlapping recognition. Apparently my real name is still in the doghouse. The Mackâs Bar Mysteries I wrote as Allyson K. Abbott went on for six books and came to a planned conclusion, so I donât anticipate anymore books under that name.
Love your cryptozoology books,any hints on the next monster,are you staying in the Midwest area?
Thanks, Gary. I just turned in the manuscript for book #5 (sitting on pins and needles waiting for feedback from my editor) and it takes place largely on Washington Island in Door County with some side trips to Green Bay. It involves a possible flying cryptidâis it Mothman or a Thunderbird??? Or something else all together? Itâs scheduled for release next January. Itâs the last book I have under contract so Iâm in the process of proposing some future books for Berkley to consider. Help me out, everyone. What cryptids would you like to see?
Thank you so much for sharing that! How absolutely fascinating! I feel like the publishing world is continuing to change and I canât imagine how challenging it is to keep adapting to it. And now we have the advent of AI-generated books complicating things!
I very much admire your persistence. What motivated you to keep plugging away in spite of the challenges?
You started out with paranormal mysteries, then switched to cozy. Do you feel like the Monster Hunter series is more of a return to your roots, since the books focus on uncommon topics? How did you come up with the idea for focusing on cryptids?
Iâm stubborn. Tell me I canât do something and Iâll beat myself up trying to do it.
And on the topic of AI, it poses some chalenges for writers as a lot of agents and publishers want to know their writers arenât using AI and there are programsâAI detectorsâthat are supposed to identify if AI is used or not. But thereâs a wrinkle in that. A lot of authors have had their books stolen by book pirating sites and then a company working on AI (Anthropic) used those stolen books to train its AI called Claude. There is a huge lawsuit with a pending settlement about it. I had 21 of my books stolen and used in this manner. When I used AI detection software on a passage from one of my books, it said there was a 90-100% chance it was written by AI, even when I used books that were written and published more than ten years ago.
Have you done the Wendigo yet? I think thatâs Minnesota but it would keep you in the Midwest.
We use AI detectors for our reviews, but wow, I had no idea how much of an issue AI posed for authors. Thatâs terrible!
Itâs obvious your stubbornness paid off. I think many (myself included) would have given up long ago. Do you still feel the stress of selling your books to publishers, or now that youâre more establish, do you have more of an âI got thisâ attitude?
The idea of a protagonist who is a cryptozoologist was born out of a phone call I had with my agent. It was after we learned there wouldnât be any more books with Kensington (Mattie Winston and Helping Hands) and it was during COVID. I spent that year writing a completely different, stand-alone thriller Iâd been playing with off and on and I was quite excited about it. My agent, however, hated it. Once I recovered from this devastating revelation (I might have mentally called him a few bad names) we brainstormed ideas. He asked me what some of my favorite TV shows were. I immediately said The X-Files (and it wasnât my favorite simply because David Duchovny was in it, though that didnât hurt!) Iâve always been fascinated by the unknown, the paranormal, and the weird. My first three novels with HC were in that genre. One of the Mattie Winston books deals with the discovery of a body that appears to be an alien. I spent some of my formative years in Washington State where Bigfoot hunting is a rite of passage. So naturally, I came up with the idea of a cryptozoologist for the main character. Iâm like Morgan in that I embrace plausible existability. My agent loved the idea and felt certain he could sell it to an editor at Berkley if I could figure out how to work a bookstore into it. Thatâs how I came up with Odds and Ends, the combination books and oddities store the main character owns and operates. The books are primarily mysteries, providing the âendsâ and the âoddsâ are all things strange, creepy, unusual, and magical. Morgan, the main character, even has a mummyâa real oneâin the store. His name is Henry and heâs become like a family member to Morgan and her crew. Heâs not your typical mummy as he was a Gold Rush â49er, not the classic Egyptian folks tend to think of when it comes to mummies.
The Wendigo is very much a part of Wisconsin folklore and itâs on my list of next possibilities.
My confidence level has certainly risen over the years. This business can be harsh, and opening oneself up to criticism, reviewers, failure, and rejection is humbling. Itâs easy to harbor self-doubt and let the negatives tear you down. My career has been one long road trip with a few dead ends, a couple turns at being ânewly discovered,â five agents, three publishers, lots of rejections, and plenty of growth. After 30 books (and thatâs not counting the ones that have gone nowhere) I have faith in my ability to tell a story, to develop engaging characters, and come up with fun, complicated plots. But I still suffer from imposter syndrome. I still bite my nails a lot and feel on edge after turning a manuscript in to my editor, thinking this will be the one that proves Iâm a terrible writer and exposes me for the fraud I am. The burn of that COVID book still stings at times, as does being dropped by two of my three publishers.
I donât want it to sound all nerve-wracking and harsh. There are great joys, too. I still revel in opening that first box of books when a new one comes outâseeing the cover, feeling the pages, inhaling that new-book smell. It never gets old. And MOST of my interactions with fans and readers are fun, heartwarming, and soul-restoring.
For those rare few that arenât fun, I simply make them a character in one of my books and then find a slow, painful way to kill them off. I also know someone who makes some truly amazing Voodoo dolls. 
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And Iâm going to ask one more question, and then Iâll back away from the keyboard so others can step in.
When you say Book #5 is the last one you have under contract, what does that mean for Book #6? Does that mean you more or less have to start pitching it from scratch, or does the current publisher just automatically accept it?