Killing it Together

Today, I bring a double treat to the Gang, with S. Lee (Sandy) Manning and J.B. (Jim) Manning, award-winning writers who bill themselves as “A Killing Couple” for a couple of good reasons. One, they’re married. And two, the award-winning books they write include a few murder victims along the way.

Jim’s books are chock-full of entertaining craziness, while Sandy’s tales are chilling and thrilling.

I am delighted that they agreed to tell us more, in their own words:

We are a couple, but we only kill in our books – hopefully in both senses of the word.

We write thrillers. Not together, at least not so far, because we have very different sensibilities.

Jim writes hilarious action adventures, wild romps with wacky over-the-top characters. His latest, The Kingdom of Hatch, features a disillusioned attorney who flees the craziness of Manhattan for the peace of the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont only to find trouble in paradise. Hilarity ensues.

Sandy writes serious thrillers with troubled characters. Her Kolya Petrov spy series explores themes of betrayal and difficult moral choices, and her latest, Deadly Choice, involves a mother seeking revenge for her daughter’s death.

Though we write separately and in different parts of the house, we share many components of the writing world. We attend conferences together. We do appearances and book talks together. Neither would think of sending a novel out without the other reading it. We bounce ideas off each other; we read and comment on each other’s work.

Writing has brought us closer together, even as we maintain our distinct styles and spaces.

The emotional component is even more important. Writing can be a lonely and sometimes frustrating pursuit. Since we both experience the ups and the downs, we can understand what the other is going through. We encourage each other when writing or the writing world gets difficult.

Is there jealousy or competition?

Maybe a little. But we’ll live with it. We’ve cheered for each other’s awards—Jim’s debut novel, Richter the Mighty, won the 2023 Silver Falchion for Best Comic Action Novel, and Sandy’s Bloody Soil won the 2023 best genre novel from Independent Publishers of New England—even when both of us were up for an award but didn’t win.

We’ve recently embarked on a new joint venture together.

It’s a YouTube channel called “A Killing Couple on the Prowl,” where we explore interesting, intriguing, or weird people, places, and things, using our backgrounds in journalism. So far, we’ve interviewed sixteen authors at Killer Nashville and at Bouchercon, to get the inside scoop on their different views of the writing experiences. We visited a town in Quebec, Canada and a library that straddles two countries. At a taco restaurant, we enjoyed great food and threw axes. (Actually, Jim threw an axe; Sandy kind of just dropped hers.)

We haven’t gone viral. Yet. Hopefully, we’ll continue to expand our audiences, for our books AND for our videos. In the meantime, we’re having fun together. In the scheme of things, maybe that’s what matters.

So, readers, there you have it: two accomplished writers offering laughs and thrills. Thanks guys, for sitting in on The Stiletto Gang today!

J.B. Manning’s debut novel, Richter The Mighty, won the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award for Best Comic Action Novel of 2023. His second novel, The Kingdom of Hatch, launched on September 25, 2024 from Encircle Publications. In prior lives, he was an attorney in New Jersey and New York, a college professor teaching English literature, and a newspaper reporter in Tampa, St. Petersburg, and New Orleans.

S. Lee Manning is the author of the Kolya Petrov international thriller series: Trojan Horse, Nerve Attack, and Bloody Soil. All three were finalists for Silver Falchions. Bloody Soil won best genre novel of 2023 from Independent Publishers of New England. Her stand alone, Deadly Choice, launched in September from Encircle Publications. Formerly, she was an attorney, a high school English teacher, and a magazine editor.

S. Lee and J.B. live in Vermont with their very talky cats, Dmitri and Xiao.

Gay Yellen is the award-winning author of The Samantha Newman Mystery Series: The Body Business, The Body Next Door, and The Body in the News.