Author Darden North featured in Monroe (LA) News-Star

Reprinted from The News Star/Lifestyle/Monroe, Louisiana

Darden North returns to sign new book, Fresh Frozen

By Hope Young • hyoung@thenewsstar.com • March 26, 2009

"This will be my third year to come to the Spring Market in Monroe," Darden said. "People in Monroe have always been so receptive when each of my books came out."

This is North's third novel, the first was "House Call" in 2005 and the second was "Points of Origin" in 2006.

"Fresh Frozen," enters the emotionally wrenching world of infertility treatments and is set in Canton, Miss. North connects northeastern Louisiana to the Mississippi setting when a delivery man of a key chemical suddenly gets Monroe added to his route.

"Jackson is between Atlanta and Dallas, and Monroe is between Jackson and Dallas. I figured that was one way I could make it plausible, make it a feasible place to stop," he said. "Also, I know the medical community in Monroe and know that this is a chemical that is used."

North begins his booksignings at noon today at Books-A-Million in Monroe. On Thursday, North will set up at the Junior League of Monroe Spring Market, where he'll be through Sunday.

"I have a great time at Spring Market," North said. "People are always interested in what I'm writing about and the characters."

North's readers let him know they liked Dr. Knox Chamblee from his other books, so he took that character and expanded it for "Fresh Frozen." Chambless relocates to practice infertility medicine at a soon-to-be world-famous clinic and finds himself face to face with the ethical and moral questions surrounding human reproduction.

"He was a protagonist in the first book and mentioned in the second. Because people liked him so much, I figured I'd better keep him alive. Because he was an OB-GYN, I sent him back to school for some training," North said.

"I kind of made him a little sexier. He's a really good doctor, grounded. Kind of an antagonist to the not real nice people. He might not follow the rules exactly," North said.

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A stickler for detail, North said all of the procedures and terminology are based in real medicine, and North said he got the idea of the fertility clinic setting from a colleague.



At a medical meeting, North heard a fertility specialist speak, and he thought that was a topic no one had written about in the medical suspense genre, so he made it the central theme of "Fresh Frozen."

"I did credit this doctor for his talk about his clinic," North said. "When you are a writer, your mind is always going. Little things pop up, and you think that would be a great story line or a great character. I was trying to write something new, fresh and timely."

It takes a lot of thought, energy and time to produce three books in just four years, and, for right now, North hasn't started on the fourth. He's been busy promoting the books by attending events such as the Spring Market.

"I've learned a lot about promotion. You have to do most of it yourself," North said. "There are some celebrity authors with big publishing companies that have it done for them, but basically you have to do it yourself."

North said with three books out, he hopes fans of his medical thrillers are eager for more.

"It boils down to a lot of self promotion, and, hopefully, you've got something to promote, and people want to read more of your writing," North said. "I hope there are some fans out there waiting for the next one."

For more information on Darden North and his work, visit his Web site, www.dardennorth.com that has links to his Facebook and MySpace pages and the Darden North Community.

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