I have lived in America now for 35 (Jeez, really?) years. I do love this country but I’m not blind to history–it’s the curse of the writer and history nerd in me. Being white, male, of a certain age and generally benign, I have not suffered much unless you count having to watch the news without going all Howard Beale. That’s not the case for everyone. Enter Dianne L Hagan and her award winning novel, Creature of Secret Stories. She is a finalist in the American Book Festival awards, Horror: General and Mystery/Suspense: Multicultural and Diverse.
Dianne, you’ve been writing a while. Tell us your story, then tell us about your story. (You know what I mean.)
In January 1976, freshman year of college, I met Ronald Hagan and knew within five minutes that he was the man with whom I would share my life. Young and naïve, I was not prepared for how the world would view us as a couple. You see, I’m white and Ronald is Black. Our love for one another, and our determination to stay together, started me on a journey of learning about race in America from one of the most intimate seats in the country. It shaped who I became as an adult and as a writer who is willing to share our stories as testimony and as a way of understanding the long reach of our country’s history.
I’ve published two memoirs. The first, Another Day in Post Racial America: To the Mothers of the Black Lives Matter Movement, With Love, was named one of the best Black Lives Matter books of all time by BookAuthority and was a semi-finalist in the North Street Book Prize 2020. American Dreaming: A Memoir of Interracial Love, Estrangement, and Race Equality won an Honorable Mention in the 29th Annual Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards. My multicultural mystery series, A Cadence Mystery, is the winner of six Literary Titan Book Awards, and seven finalist awards from the American Fiction Awards. Creature of Secret Sorrows (A Cadence Mystery, #7) the newest book in the series was named a finalist in two categories in the 2026 American Fiction Awards: Mystery/Suspense: Multicultural and Diverse and Horror: General. I’m currently working on book 8 of the series. The series focuses on the small town of Cadence, New York, where the past doesn’t stay buried. It awakens and demands justice.
So tell us about book #7
In Creature of Secret Sorrows (A Cadence Mystery #7), Randy Nichols, a retired geology professor, goes missing. While searching for him, Marian Greene stumbles upon a horrific murder scene reminiscent of a bygone dark era in American history. A family relic, twice stolen, is returned and found to be cursed, altering perceptions and causing suspicion among close friends. And then things turn really bad when a creature that should only exist in Ghanaian folklore taunts police officers.
When the FBI arrives and takes charge, Police Chief George Powless is more determined than ever to solve the case, even if it means using methods that are far outside the usual police procedures and protocols.
As with all the books in the series, Creature of Secret Sorrows blurs the line between a police procedural and the supernatural.
It’s pretty obvious, given your personal stake in it, but what about the story interested you?
All the books in the series explore how the past, if left unresolved, has a stranglehold on the present. This book is no different. The dark chapters in American history still have an impact on our identity as a country today.
Cadence, New York, a fictional town in the Finger Lakes region, founded in 1789 on sacred Seneca land, is a multicultural utopian community governed by the Onondaga principles of respect, collaboration, and equality. Since its founding, the town has been besieged by haters, and after a race massacre in 1921, went into hiding for 100 years with the hope that the rest of the country would evolve. The series opens in 2021 at the close of that 100 years of waiting. A running theme of A Cadence Mystery is that long-buried secrets aren’t truly buried. They are simply waiting for the right convergence of people and events to reveal themselves. And once revealed, they demand acknowledgement, reclamation, and reparative justice. And the final theme is that the strength of community, found family, and human resilience can carry us through the worst of times. Readers who like mysteries that go beyond police procedurals, are character-driven, and that deal with both historical and current social justice themes and/or supernatural influences will enjoy the series.
What’s your favorite scene?
Toward the end of the book, Junee, a root worker (a spiritual practitioner) from New Orleans, and Wilson Woodrow, one of the series regulars, goes to one of the Cadence family cemeteries to gather soil for use in a spell to break the curse of the family relic. Wilson has only recently settled in Cadence after a life of wandering because he has always been haunted by his best friend Joey’s death during a drunk driving accident when they were teens. Junee nearly floats through the cemetery, joyfully greeting spirits, while Wilson is weighed down by guilt and regret. That is, until Joey appears. I loved writing this scene, bringing the visual and sensory details of the cemetery to the page and the difference between Junee’s and Wilson’s response to this sacred place where the line between life and death is blurred
Where can we learn more about you and your work?
Speaking of the American Book Festival Awards:
The Deserter- a Tale of the Foreign Legion is the 2026 American Book Fest winner for Adventure/Historical books. You can read about it here.
If you haven’t read it yet, what’s keeping you?
The Deserter- a Tale of the Foreign Legion, is “a remarkable, thoroughly researched, gripping tale. A two-fisted adventure set in the African desert.” Available in paperback anywhere, and on Kindle.
