Sally Jo Pitts is an award-winning author who brings experience as a private investigator, licensed lie detection examiner, high school guidance counselor and home economics teacher to the fiction page. Having worked thirty years alongside her late law enforcement husband in his private investigations agency, she learned to teach by day and snoop by night. Currently, she draws on real-life experiences to pen faith-based stories of romance and mystery. Her works include the Hamilton Harbor Legacy romance series and the Seasons of Mystery detective series. Sweet Deceit is book one in the new Secrets of Sweet County series.
Visit Sally Jo Pitts online
Sweet Deceit
Someone will stop at nothing to keep the secrets of Sweet County hidden. Public Relations consultant ANNIE MCAFEE hopes to spend a quiet summer in Sugarville waitressing, housesitting, and job hunting. But her plans are upended after she’s run off the road and narrowly escapes with her life. Rookie state investigator WILL BRICE is looking forward to a bright future with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement until the governor removes the Sweet County Sheriff and appoints Will to take his place. Propelled into the middle of Sweet County’s dark secrets, Will and Annie find that deceit hides beneath its sugar-coated façade, and the townspeople prefer to turn a blind eye to wrongdoing. Confronted with a web of mysterious threats, life threatening crises, and the death of a teenager, the two must work together with the help of an unusual sidekick to expose the corruption. Can this unlikely crime fighting trio crack the town’s sweet cover?
- ISBN: B0CTXNNTYV
- Publisher: Elk Lake Publishing, Inc.
Interview with Sally Jo Pitts
What made you want to become an author?
As a youngster I read Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and Alfred Hitchcock mysteries and enjoyed writing simple little stories and plays. I took creative writing in high school and thought I might become an English teacher, but life choices took me in a different direction. I became a home economics teacher, high school guidance counselor, and a private detective in my husband’s investigations agency. When I retired from education, I took a college creative writing class and the love of writing rekindled. In 2011, I discovered a Christian writers conference and subsequently writing workshops, retreats and a local writers’ group. My first novel was published in 2018 and I continue to write and work to learn the craft. I feel like I have returned to my writing roots and inspiration of my younger years.
What did you learn while writing Sweet Deceit?
The overarching learning experience in writing this story was figuring out how to fictionalize and update a true story. Like my story’s hero Will Brice, my husband was pulled from his dream job as a state agent to help the governor’s appointee who had replaced the elected sheriff removed from office for malfeasance. But when the appointee quit, my husband was appointed interim sheriff. He had a mandate to clean up a dry county where he knew no one and the townspeople weren’t particularly cooperative. I created the plot by weaving a mixture of true events that occurred while he was interim sheriff into a web of suspense and tossed in a romance.
If someone were to look at your Google search history (all for research of course!), what types of things would we find?
Oh, my. All kinds of stuff I’ve been researching for stories. For Sweet Deceit some topics: Pigs-their diet, mannerisms, sniffing ability; car accident repair; capitol building in Tallahassee, layout and grounds; dessert names; small restaurant operation; north Florida highways; basement access design; Victorian houses, care of roses, majors and minors of study at FSU; cost of golf balls; wet, dry, and moist counties; types of rat traps, etc. Add to that WWII, ordering glasses online, YouTube how tos on rope tying, quick and easy recipes… I could go on and on!
What do you want readers to take away from Sweet Deceit?
With God’s help, our imperfections, flaws, and difficult circumstances can be used in positive ways.
If you could have coffee with an author, dead or alive, whose work you admire, who would that be? What would you ask him or her?
I’d love to sit and chat with C.J. Box, author of the Joe Pickett game warden series. I would ask him to share his character, and Western setting writing skills.
What’s your go-to drink while writing?
Water or my own hot mocha concoction of coffee with hot chocolate mix. Sometimes I add collagen and almond milk creamer.
If you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?
See each day as a gift and opportunity because you will never get it back.
What do you enjoy doing when you are not writing?
Reading, Bible study, watching old movies and TV sit-coms, walking the dog, and cheering for my grandkids at soccer games.
What books are on your TBR pile right now?
Escape from Timbuktu by Shirley Gould, Fatal Witness by Patricia Bradley, No Room in His Heart by Bonita McCoy, Writing Deep POV by Kathy Tyers, Tara Road by Maeve Binchy, and The Person Called You by Bill Hendricks. Plus the kindle on my phone is full of TBRs!
What can we look forward to next?
I am in the rewrite stage of the next romantic suspense in my Sweet County Secrets series, Sweet Double-Cross. The inspiration for the romance is based on the true “love at first sight” story of a good friend and the suspense is spiced up with invasive plant species research and scoundrels.
As a youngster I read Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and Alfred Hitchcock mysteries and enjoyed writing simple little stories and plays. I took creative writing in high school and thought I might become an English teacher, but life choices took me in a different direction. I became a home economics teacher, high school guidance counselor, and a private detective in my husband’s investigations agency. When I retired from education, I took a college creative writing class and the love of writing rekindled. In 2011, I discovered a Christian writers conference and subsequently writing workshops, retreats and a local writers’ group. My first novel was published in 2018 and I continue to write and work to learn the craft. I feel like I have returned to my writing roots and inspiration of my younger years.
What did you learn while writing Sweet Deceit?
The overarching learning experience in writing this story was figuring out how to fictionalize and update a true story. Like my story’s hero Will Brice, my husband was pulled from his dream job as a state agent to help the governor’s appointee who had replaced the elected sheriff removed from office for malfeasance. But when the appointee quit, my husband was appointed interim sheriff. He had a mandate to clean up a dry county where he knew no one and the townspeople weren’t particularly cooperative. I created the plot by weaving a mixture of true events that occurred while he was interim sheriff into a web of suspense and tossed in a romance.
If someone were to look at your Google search history (all for research of course!), what types of things would we find?
Oh, my. All kinds of stuff I’ve been researching for stories. For Sweet Deceit some topics: Pigs-their diet, mannerisms, sniffing ability; car accident repair; capitol building in Tallahassee, layout and grounds; dessert names; small restaurant operation; north Florida highways; basement access design; Victorian houses, care of roses, majors and minors of study at FSU; cost of golf balls; wet, dry, and moist counties; types of rat traps, etc. Add to that WWII, ordering glasses online, YouTube how tos on rope tying, quick and easy recipes… I could go on and on!
What do you want readers to take away from Sweet Deceit?
With God’s help, our imperfections, flaws, and difficult circumstances can be used in positive ways.
If you could have coffee with an author, dead or alive, whose work you admire, who would that be? What would you ask him or her?
I’d love to sit and chat with C.J. Box, author of the Joe Pickett game warden series. I would ask him to share his character, and Western setting writing skills.
What’s your go-to drink while writing?
Water or my own hot mocha concoction of coffee with hot chocolate mix. Sometimes I add collagen and almond milk creamer.
If you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?
See each day as a gift and opportunity because you will never get it back.
What do you enjoy doing when you are not writing?
Reading, Bible study, watching old movies and TV sit-coms, walking the dog, and cheering for my grandkids at soccer games.
What books are on your TBR pile right now?
Escape from Timbuktu by Shirley Gould, Fatal Witness by Patricia Bradley, No Room in His Heart by Bonita McCoy, Writing Deep POV by Kathy Tyers, Tara Road by Maeve Binchy, and The Person Called You by Bill Hendricks. Plus the kindle on my phone is full of TBRs!
What can we look forward to next?
I am in the rewrite stage of the next romantic suspense in my Sweet County Secrets series, Sweet Double-Cross. The inspiration for the romance is based on the true “love at first sight” story of a good friend and the suspense is spiced up with invasive plant species research and scoundrels.
For more great interviews, visit our Author Interview Archives.