Before I became a suspense novelist, I wrote romantic suspense as

In the words of Lisa Gardner, “Before I became a suspense novelist, I wrote romantic suspense as Alicia Scott.” Within this statement lies not merely the record of a career, but the story of transformation, of identity, and of the power of names. For to take up a different name, to write under another voice, is to walk between worlds: one foot in the past, one in the present, and both pressing toward the future. It is a declaration that the self is not fixed, but like a river, able to carve new paths, yet always flowing from the same source.

The choice of the name Alicia Scott was no accident. Authors throughout the ages have taken on other names to mark beginnings, to shield themselves, or to shape a new destiny. The poet Ovid wrote under the shadow of Rome’s politics, concealing defiance in myth; the Brontë sisters—Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—took upon themselves the names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, so their voices might be heard in a world that silenced women. So too did Lisa Gardner once cloak herself in Alicia Scott, crafting stories of romantic suspense, tales where love intertwined with danger, and danger made love burn brighter.

The evolution from romantic suspense to pure suspense is also a mirror of the journey of life. In youth, the heart is drawn to romance, for love is the fire that awakens the imagination. Yet as the years unfold, shadows lengthen; the world reveals its darker corridors, and the soul learns to wrestle not only with passion but with fear, justice, and survival. Thus Gardner’s transformation speaks not only of personal growth but of the natural arc of the storyteller: from the tender fire of romance to the sharper blade of suspense. Both are necessary, both are true, but each belongs to a season of life.

Consider the story of Agatha Christie, the queen of mystery. Before she was celebrated across the world, she wrote under the name Mary Westmacott, crafting novels of deep emotional struggle, filled with yearning and sorrow. Like Gardner, she began with the heart before sharpening her pen upon the enigma of crime. And though history remembers her mysteries most, those earlier works reveal the foundation—the tender soil from which her mastery of suspense grew. For without love, there is no fear of loss, and without loss, suspense holds no weight.

In this we see the wisdom: the path of the creator is built upon layers, each name, each genre, each season adding strength to the foundation. Alicia Scott was not left behind, but lives on within Lisa Gardner, for every story of peril she tells still carries within it the pulse of love, the ache of vulnerability, the reminder that suspense is sharpened by the heart’s capacity to care. The old name may have been set aside, but the soul that bore it remains alive in the craft.

The lesson, then, is this: do not despise your beginnings, nor the names you once carried, nor the works that seem smaller than what you later achieve. For they are the roots of the tree, unseen but vital, holding you steady when storms come. The romantic suspense of Alicia Scott gave birth to the suspense novelist Lisa Gardner. Without the first, the second could not stand. So too in every life, what seems to be a stepping-stone is in truth the foundation of destiny.

And what must you do? Honor your earlier selves. Remember the crafts you practiced when no one was watching, the names you carried before recognition came, the passions that seemed small but were shaping you all along. Do not bury them in shame or forgetfulness, but let them live within you as witnesses of your journey. For the ancients teach us that the past is not left behind—it walks with us. Just as Gardner carries Alicia Scott within her, so too must you carry your earlier names, your earlier works, your earlier selves, and let them speak through all you create today.