Bankrate: It's become one of the strongest genres of fiction today.

Fielding: I think that's because we're familiar with it. We all live in domestic situations, and what's more terrifying than something disrupting the nice, comfortable little world you've created for yourself? Things like spy novels never interested me because it's too remote from my existence. I don't mind seeing a good spy movie but I can't read the books, they give me a headache. The minute I see the initials CIA, I get a headache, and I can't follow them; I don't know what they're talking about. Those high-tech, Tom Clancy-type thrillers have no appeal to me because I just get too confused and they're not character-oriented. I much prefer to get inside the minds and lives of the characters. I find that much more terrifying. I'm not particularly concerned about spies in our midst; I'm much more concerned about the killer living next door.

Bankrate: In 1980, after three novels and nearly a decade in training, you broke onto the best-seller lists with "Kiss Mommy Goodbye." Were you prepared for the success?

Fielding: I think had I been 27 and started to have a great deal of money, it might have had a different effect. But I worked very hard and I was writing for eight years before I saw more than a few thousand dollars a year from my books. I did a lot of substitute teaching in high schools for a while, but once I had my first child, I stopped. I was, and still am, married to a lawyer, so it wasn't urgent that I work. I really didn't have to at that point, so I stayed home with the girls and I wrote. That's when it became a fulltime job, in addition to looking after the girls. And it was great because I didn't have to face these really agonizing choices that all my friends did -- such as, "Do I go to work or do I stay home with my kids?" I stayed home with my kids, plus I worked. So it turned out very well for me, and by the time I started making a decent living, I felt I had really earned it. I was old enough to not be overwhelmed by it. And I was realistic -- I knew that it could go away, and that it could stop as easily as it came.