Hello rebels! Next week I'm interviewing Betty Corrello, the author of Back For Seconds, 32 Days in May, and Summertime Punchline. She has also published My Italian Vampire and Wild Ruin under the pen name B.C. Dolce.

What are you dying to know about Betty's career and her bitingly funny romances?

Submit your questions in the comments by Wednesday 10/28 and I might ask her during an upcoming episode of Rebel Ever After.

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What happens when grief, folklore, identity, and friendship intertwine in a mystery that reaches far beyond the game itself? 📚✨

Welcome back to Book Club Conversations with The Page Ladies Book Club, where we invite readers behind the pages to discover the inspiration, ideas, and stories that shape the books we love.

This time, we're delighted to feature Suanne Laqueur, author of The Great Dane, a novel that explores grief, identity, belonging, friendship, and the mysteries that connect us across time and cultures.

In our conversation, Suanne shares how an ancient symbol sparked her imagination, how a video game became the doorway into a deeply personal mystery, and why kindness and friendship sit at the heart of this story.

🐇 From an Ancient Symbol to an Unexpected Story

Sometimes a story begins with a character. Sometimes it starts with a question that refuses to let go.

For Suanne, the spark behind The Great Dane was the fascinating Three Hares motif, an image found in art and architecture along the Old Silk Road. Its unusual design features three rotating hares whose ears create an optical illusion: each appears to have two ears, even though they share them.

That captivating image led Suanne to wonder why hares appear in so many cultures and religions and what makes the number three so compelling.

Around the same time, she encountered an article about tetragametic chimerism, a rare condition involving two distinct sets of DNA. This discovery helped shape Dane, a non-binary character whose identity also has a physical manifestation.

What began as curiosity about a centuries-old symbol grew into a story exploring identity, connection, and the meanings we find in the things that bring us together.

🎮 A Video Game with a Mystery at Its Heart

In The Great Dane, a grieving father becomes absorbed in a mystery hidden inside his late son's favorite video game.

Suanne describes herself as more of a casual puzzle-game enthusiast than a serious gamer. She enjoys journeys, exploration, and discovering things along the way. That appreciation inspired her to imagine a game built around the Three Hares motif, with a mystery embedded within it.

But as Suanne explains in our conversation, solving the puzzles isn't enough. Without understanding the story behind them, even the solution can feel empty.

The mystery ultimately carries a deeply personal meaning for Dane, a love letter to three people, two of whom are gone.

💔 Grief, Friendship, and Finding a Gentle Place to Land

One of the most moving parts of our conversation explores the connection between Liko and Dane.

Both men have experienced profound loss. Liko is grieving his son, while Dane is navigating the deaths and abandonment that have reshaped his own life. When they meet, neither needs someone to offer easy answers or pretend everything will be okay.

Instead, they find someone who understands.

Suanne wanted to explore how compassion and kindness can exist alongside grief and how humor can still find its way into even the darkest moments.

Their friendship becomes a place where they can talk, sit quietly, commiserate, and sometimes laugh. As Suanne beautifully describes it, each becomes a gentle place for the other to lay his head.

That idea captures something deeply human: sometimes the greatest comfort comes not from someone fixing our pain, but from someone willing to sit beside us in it.

🌈 Identity, Belonging, and Life Beyond Labels

The novel also explores the experiences of the three partners living at Schoenfeld's farm: Ethan, Dane, and Nomi.

Each navigates a world that may try to define them through labels, assumptions, and prejudice. Suanne discusses the humility and care required when researching and writing diverse characters, acknowledging both the challenges and the responsibility involved in bringing their experiences to the page.

Their stories invite readers to consider how identity, acceptance, and belonging shape our relationships and how much richer our understanding of others becomes when we look beyond conventional expectations.

❤️ The Theme Suanne Hopes Readers Will Remember

When asked which theme she hopes readers pay particular attention to, Suanne's answer is friendship.

For her, The Great Dane is fundamentally a story about people being kind to one another. Friendship grows from love, acceptance, and compassion, offering connection when life feels fractured.

And honestly, isn't that a message we could all use a little more of?

📖 Want to Read the Full Interview?

This is only a glimpse into our conversation with Suanne Laqueur! We've explored the inspiration behind The Great Dane, but there's so much more to discover about the Three Hares mystery, the characters, the creative process, and the meaning behind the novel's emotional journey.

Join The First Editions on Bindery to read our full, extended Book Club Conversation with Suanne Laqueur. Your membership unlocks the complete interview and the deeper discussion behind the story.

Come join The First Editions, settle in with your favorite reading drink, and let's keep turning pages together. 💕📚

Connect with Suanne Laqueur

• Official website: https://suannelaqueurwrites.com/

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/suannelaqueur/

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/swainblqr

• Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8317803.Suanne_Laqueur

• Find The Great Dane on Amazon: https://link.amazon/B0iVn38NN

Let's Talk Books!

What makes a friendship in fiction unforgettable for you the ability to understand each other's pain, the freedom to laugh together, or the feeling of being accepted exactly as you are?

Share your thoughts with The Page Ladies. We can't wait to hear what you think!

What if the greatest mystery isn't simply about finding the answers, but understanding the stories, relationships, and love that give those answers meaning?

Welcome to another edition of Book Club Conversations with The Page Ladies Book Club! 💕📚

We're delighted to welcome author Suanne Laqueur for an in-depth conversation about The Great Dane, a thought-provoking novel that weaves together folklore, an intricate mystery, identity, grief, friendship, and the extraordinary ways people can love one another.

From the ancient Three Hares motif that sparked the novel to the complicated relationships that make its characters feel so human, Suanne takes us behind the scenes of her creative process. She shares the research that inspired the story, the emotional realities of writing grief, the influence of her professional dance background, and the unexpected ways characters sometimes take control of their own stories.

And because we're The Page Ladies, we couldn't leave out the bookish questions, writing confessions, reading habits, and quick-fire round that every book lover wants to know!

Settle in, grab your favorite reading drink, and join us for this conversation about stories, connection, and why three might just be love's most magical number. 🐇✨

🐇 Getting to Know The Great Dane

1. If you had to describe The Great Dane in three words, what would they be?

Suanne Laqueur: Emotional, inclusive and chimeric.

2. What was the very first spark for The Great Dane? Did Liko, Dane, the Three Hares mystery, or the themes of identity and belonging come to you first?

Suanne Laqueur:

I discovered the Three Hares motif and just became weirdly captivated with it. I wondered how I could write a story about it and started kicking around a bunch of ideas and playing with some characters. At the same time, I saw an article about someone with tetragametic chimerism possessing two different sets of DNA, XX and XY and presenting outward signs like heterochromia and Blaschko’s lines. This became the inspiration for Dane, who had always been a non-binary character in my mind, but now that identity also had a physical manifestation.

3. A grieving father becomes obsessed with a mystery hidden inside his late son's favorite video game. What made you want to use a video game as the doorway into this story?

Suanne Laqueur:

As my characters were falling into place, I still didn’t know how I could work in the motif of the Three Hares and the Green Man. I wouldn’t consider myself a serious gamer, I’m more of a casual app enjoyer of puzzle games, or single-player adventures with an interesting backstory but nobody jumping out to kill me. I like a journey, finding things along the way. So finally it occurred to me to make the Three Hares into that sort of game, but embed a mystery within it.

4. The Three Hares motif appears throughout art and architecture along the Old Silk Road. What first caught your attention about this fascinating symbol?

Suanne Laqueur:

It was that threefold rotating symmetry and the optical illusion of each hare looking like it has two ears when really they share one. Why hares? What’s their significance? And why did so many cultures and religions latch onto this motif, using it in art and architecture? What is it about the number three that we find so compelling?

5. Without giving away spoilers, what can you tease readers about the mystery surrounding Three Hares?

Suanne Laqueur:

As Dane says to Liko,

“Unless you have the context of the mystery, the solution isn’t going to be very satisfying or even interesting. I can give you the solution on a plate in five minutes. You can find all the missing objects, solve all the anagrams, make this do that and that do this… But without the story behind it all, you’ll be disappointed. The end game is beautiful to me, because it’s my story. It’s a love letter to three people, two of whom are gone…”

6. Liko and Dane are both dealing with profound loss when they meet. What interested you about bringing these two people together at that particular point in their lives?

Suanne Laqueur:

I wanted to write about not only compassion and kindness within the depths of grief, but the ability to find humor in the darkest times. Liko is understandably destroyed by his son’s death and the loss changes everything. His entire priority system is revised. His existence divides into The Precious Little I Give a F*ck About and The Meaningless Scrapheap of Everything Else. I wanted to give him a friend who understands, truly understands the bottomless depths of that kind of grief. Dane is that friend. He’s destroyed by his wife’s death and his partner’s abandonment. He has no time for BS anymore. The two men can commiserate, bond, pass time in silence, or even laugh about their situation. Each becomes a gentle place for the other to lay their head.

7. Dane has one blue eye, one brown eye, an extraordinary history, and a life that doesn't fit neatly into conventional expectations. What can you tell us about what makes Dane such a compelling character to write?

Suanne Laqueur:

I always approach diverse characters with a lot of humility and trepidation because I know there’s more I can get wrong than right. All three partners living at Schoenfeld’s farm struggle with labels and prejudices put on their identities: Ethan for being gay and asexual; Dane for being intersex and non-binary; Nomi for being a masc-presenting woman who opts not to reconstruct her breasts after a mastectomy. All this made them really interesting and challenging characters to research and develop.

8. The novel explores love, identity, power, friendship, belonging, folklore, and hope. If you could choose one of those themes for readers to pay especially close attention to, what would it be?

Suanne Laqueur:

Definitely friendship, which is rooted in love and acceptance and compassion. The Great Dane is essentially about people being kind to each other. I think we need that right now.

💔 Writing Grief, Time, and the Relationships That Remain

9. Liko begins the story trying to “pass, waste or kill time” after the death of his son, but his obsession with Three Hares ultimately gives him somewhere to go. How did you approach writing grief as something that can affect the way a person experiences time itself?

Suanne Laqueur:

This was brought home to me by a close friend who experienced the loss of a child. She told me, quite bluntly, how so much of grief is putting as many minutes as possible between you and THAT DAY, and hopefully enough minutes accumulate where killing yourself is a less attractive option. Grief isn’t linear you don’t go from point A to point B and you’re suddenly over it. You’re overwhelmed by the infinite minutes you have to get through and your consciousness starts to do funny things with time. You’re either achingly aware of every second, or you blink and two months have passed.

10. Was Liko’s grief something you knew would be central to his character from the beginning, or did that emotional journey deepen as you wrote him?

Suanne Laqueur:

Absolutely it was there from the beginning. One aspect that unexpectedly deepened was Liko’s relationship with his ex-wife. I could have made Janelle a convenient villain letting the comic relief of hating your ex take the edge off some of the heavier themes. But I'm so glad I took the time to get to know her, let her character develop, and let a bond continue between her and Liko as parents. Though they weren't married anymore, they found a way to be good to each other, to let the “us” that made Kyle continue to live and love.

11. The Three Hares mystery gives Liko a literal quest while he is also navigating a much more personal journey. Did you intentionally structure the mystery as a reflection of his emotional journey?

Suanne Laqueur:

Dane issues a caveat about the mystery right from the get-go: the solution might not be satisfying. It makes more sense when you have the story behind it but still, the ending might be anti-climactic. Understanding the need to pass, waste and kill time, he counsels Liko to take the journey slowly. It’s a paint-by-number kit, not a finished work of art. This slow pace spills into the attraction between the two men. They acknowledge they are growing closer, but neither is in a rush to act upon it. I think this is their way of taking back control of time, of precipitating a situation instead of being steamrolled by it, the way a loved one’s death clobbered them.

12. What did your research process for the Three Hares motif look like? Did one discovery lead to another until you found yourself completely down the rabbit hole? 🐇

Suanne Laqueur:

A ton of reading articles and books about the three hares in particular, but hares and rabbits in art, culture, literature. Books about the Green Man. Books about gender identity in myth and legend. It’s just a ton of intake but somehow, in some magical process I still can’t fathom, it starts to coalesce into the thread that weaves everything together.

13. Was there a particular piece of Three Hares history, folklore, art, or architecture that fascinated you more than you expected?

Suanne Laqueur:

Wherever the Three Hares motif appears in church architecture, the motif of the Green Man is always close by. This discovery grabbed me from the start. I wanted to write about three characters that somehow revolve around someone named Greenman. It didn’t quite turn out that way, but it’s where the premise started. Also fascinating was learning that in the Buddhist caves at Magao, the Three Hares motif appears in 16 caves, always with the hares running clockwise. Except for cave 407, in which they run counter-clockwise. This idea of running against the tide, or getting out of your comfort zone, or the wrong way being the most compassionate way, shaped a lot of the story.

14. Dane spent 22 years building a life with Ethan and Nomi. How did you approach giving that relationship its own history and emotional weight, even though readers encounter Dane after that life has already changed?

Suanne Laqueur:

Given my way, the book would be 1,000 pages and tell every detail of those 22 years. But to keep it a reasonable length, I had to condense the decades down to stories, either told in dialogue or in flashback. While I had a structure to follow most of the stories Dane tells are to explain the clues in the video game mystery it was really challenging to keep Dane’s past concise and relevant, and not let the book take it off in a totally different direction.

15. The novel challenges the idea that the deepest human connections must exist between two people. What drew you to explore the idea that “three is often love's most magical number”?

Suanne Laqueur:

I won’t lie a lot of it was the Schoolhouse Rock song “Three is a magic number.” I just love that lyric somewhere in the ancient mystic trinity, you get three as a magic number. In nearly every fairytale and legend, things happen in threes. Three objects, three wishes, three visits, three beans, three chances to solve a riddle. I wanted to write about three people in love.

Another influence was a book about the creator of Wonder Woman, William Moulton Marston and how he and his wife were a “throuple” with another woman Olive Byrne.

And last, when I was telling a friend about my new idea for a book, she told me that growing up, there was a family friend “Uncle Sean” who was always around. Like ALWAYS around. He was fun and wild and crazy and she loved him and took him for granted as her dad’s best friend. But only now was she realizing that Sean was very likely intimately involved with both her parents. She was sure of it. But they’d all passed and she’d never know.

16. Was there a particular character who surprised you during the writing process and became more complicated or more important than you originally expected?

Suanne Laqueur:

Every one of my books has a secondary or even tertiary character who steals the show.

24. Do your characters usually follow the plan you create for them, or do they have a habit of grabbing the steering wheel and taking the story somewhere you didn't expect?

💫 The Author and the Art of Storytelling

25. Your background is in professional dance and teaching. You’ve described your transition from choreographing music to “choreographing words.” How does your dance background influence the way you write?

Suanne Laqueur:

I was really surprised to learn how similar the two art forms were. Coming up with a story is very much like coming up with the concept for a dance piece. Writing the emotional beats of a story is like coming up with steps to convey feeling. I always had a knack for choreographing for large numbers of people, and I tend to think I write group dialogue scenes well managing who is speaking when, and why.

26. Does a character’s physical movement ever help you understand who they are before you fully understand them through words?

Suanne Laqueur:

Not in this particular novel, but I can think of examples from some of my other books. Daisy Bianco in The Fish Tales is a dancer so obviously the way she moves through the world is shaped by that training and spatial-awareness. Jude Tholet from A Scarcity of Condors, was the victim of a hate crime and his leg was broken by a school bully. Although the injury fully heals, it seems the trauma is embedded in the bone and he limps a little when he’s in extreme emotional situations. Or Javier Landes in An Exaltation of Larks, who was thrown out of his house at age 17 and became a male escort to survive. His physical stature is imbued with confidence, poise, grace, fine-tuned attentiveness. When he’s working, he’s a portrait of self-control. But when his heart is making decisions, he’s a bit of a klutz.

27. You've written stories that cross gender, age, and genre. What keeps you interested in writing characters and relationships that don't fit neatly into one category?

Suanne Laqueur:

I’m essentially a contemporary fiction author by my two forays into historical fiction and fantasy happened because previous books dictated it. I wrote The Fish Tales as a contemporary romance, but the lead character Erik Fiskare is informed, in a sort of offhand way, that his experience with surviving a school shooting is very much like his grandfather Kennet’s experience fighting in World War 2. And both grandfather and grandson experienced very similar arcs in their own love stories. So I wanted to write Kennet’s story which involved doing a ton of research but I love how it came out. As for The Voyages of Trueblood Cay, that was the novel that the character Javier Landes is writing during the Venery series. The idea and inspiration for it are so much a part of his character, my readers kept asking “You are going to write this, correct?” And I thought gulp, I guess I am.

28. What usually comes first for you when you're developing a novel: the character, the central question, the setting, the mystery, or something completely unexpected?

Suanne Laqueur:

It’s either the general premise first or the characters first.

29. Are you a plotter, a pantser, or somewhere in the wonderfully unpredictable middle?

Suanne Laqueur:

Total pantser although with The Great Dane I had to plot out the progression of the video game with all its clues and solutions. And there was a very complicated timetable with postcards being sent and needing to arrive at certain times.

30. What's the hardest part of writing a novel for you?

Suanne Laqueur:

Putting my butt in the chair and starting.

31. What's the part of the process you could happily do forever?

Suanne Laqueur:

Once it’s written, I could tinker with it forever. At some point you have to put the pencil down and just stop. Let it go and let it belong to the world.

📚 Questions Book Lovers Always Want to Know

32. What kind of reader were you growing up?

Suanne Laqueur:

VORACIOUS. Always with my nose in a book.

35. Was there a book or author that made you fall in love with stories that explore complicated relationships and the messiness of being human?

Suanne Laqueur:

Laurie Colwin, no doubt. Her book Family Happiness was life-changing in that way.

36. Is there a book you wish you could erase from your memory just so you could experience reading it for the first time again?

Suanne Laqueur:

Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series.

37. What's a book that made you think, “I wish I'd written this”?

Suanne Laqueur:

Alice Archer’s Everyday History.

38. What book do you find yourself recommending over and over again?

Suanne Laqueur:

Alice Archer’s Everyday History.

39. What's a trope that will make you immediately pick up a book?

Suanne Laqueur:

I don’t know about trope but if a book has Hotel in the title, I’m in.

41. When you're reading for pleasure, can you completely turn off your author brain, or do you find yourself analyzing the writing?

Suanne Laqueur:

If it’s way outside my trope, yes. If not, I’m kind of the worst.

42. Are you a one-book-at-a-time reader, or do you have several books going at once?

Suanne Laqueur:

I can do two books at once if one is non-fiction. Typically I eye-read fiction, and listen to non-fiction or to fiction I’ve read before.

43. What's currently sitting on your TBR that you're especially excited about?

Suanne Laqueur:

Natasha Pulley’s The Salt King and K Ancrum’s Adam, Mine.

44. If you could invite three fictional characters from any books to dinner, who would you choose and which character would you absolutely not trust to behave themselves? 😂

Suanne Laqueur:

Javier Landes, Steffen Finch, and Tej Khoury. Tej would NOT behave himself.

✍️ The Author Life

45. You've been writing for many years. What keeps you coming back to storytelling?

Suanne Laqueur:

I swear every time I publish a book, I say it’s the last book. I am never doing this again! But yet I do. Sometimes it’s because the series requires it. Other times it’s just…I suppose I have to. This is what I do.

46. What's something about the publishing process that surprised you once you became an author?

Suanne Laqueur:

The amount of time marketing and promo.

47. How has your writing changed since your first published novel?

Suanne Laqueur:

Exponentially. I don’t worry when people read Venery and Dane after they’ve read the Fish Tales but I do worry a little when they read in the reverse order. I always feel like saying, “Be kind… I was very young… I had a lot to learn…”

48. What's something you wish you could go back and tell yourself when you were writing your first book?

Suanne Laqueur:

Pace yourself. Slow is the new fast.

49. Do you have any writing rituals, favorite snacks, playlists, lucky objects, or unusual habits that have become part of your creative process?

Suanne Laqueur:

Every 10K words completed, I book a massage.

50. What do you do when you're stuck on a scene or struggling to figure out where the story needs to go?

Suanne Laqueur:

I pivot to my artwork. Creativity has a jealous side, and nothing makes it stop sulking and cooperate like your attention being focused on some other project.

51. What's the best piece of writing advice you've ever received?

Suanne Laqueur:

Don’t be clever, just trust the reader and say what you mean.

52. What's one piece of advice you'd give someone who dreams of writing a novel but hasn't taken the first step yet?

Suanne Laqueur:

Butt in chair and write.

🐇 Quick-Fire Bookish Round

We couldn't let Suanne leave without a rapid-fire round of bookish choices! From preferred formats to favorite fictional worlds, here's where her reading personality really shines.

53. Hardcover or paperback?

Suanne Laqueur: Paperback.

54. Physical books or ebooks?

Suanne Laqueur: eBook.

55. Library or bookstore?

Suanne Laqueur: Library.

56. Annotate everything or keep the pages pristine?

Suanne Laqueur: Annotate.

57. Mystery or romance?

Suanne Laqueur: Romance.

58. Folklore or mythology?

Suanne Laqueur: Folklore.

59. Dual timeline or single timeline?

Suanne Laqueur: Single.

60. Slow burn or instant chemistry?

Suanne Laqueur: Slow burn.

61. Found family or forbidden romance?

Suanne Laqueur: Found family.

62. Plot twist or emotional gut punch?

Suanne Laqueur: Plot twist.

63. One enormous book or an entire series?

Suanne Laqueur: Series.

64. Read late into the night or wake up early to read?

Suanne Laqueur: Late at night.

65. Bookmark or dog-ear?

Suanne Laqueur: Dog ear.

66. Favorite reading snack?

Suanne Laqueur: Wine and dark chocolate.

67. If you could spend one week inside any fictional book world, which would you choose?

Suanne Laqueur: Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials.

🖤 One Last Question

68. The Great Dane asks readers to think about identity, labels, grief, love, belonging, and what it means to truly see another person. When readers reach the final page, what is the one question you hope they continue carrying with them?

Suanne Laqueur:

Be the trampoline, not the staircase.

69. And finally, what is something you’re excited for readers to discover about The Great Dane whether it's a character, a piece of the mystery, a theme, or something they might not expect?

Suanne Laqueur:

That three truly is a magic number.

💕 A Huge Thank You to Suanne Laqueur!

Suanne, thank you for sitting down with The Page Ladies Book Club and sharing so much of your creative process, research, reading life, and heart with our community.

From the symbolism of the Three Hares to the way grief changes our experience of time, your answers offer so much to think about. We especially loved hearing about the importance of friendship, the careful development of diverse characters, and the idea that meaningful connections don't always fit into the boxes society expects.

Your reminder to “Be the trampoline, not the staircase” is one we'll be carrying with us. Sometimes the most important thing we can do for another person isn't to dictate their path, but to give them the support and space to find their own way.

Thank you for reminding us that stories can challenge assumptions, make room for complicated relationships, and show us the power of kindness.

📖 Want More? Join The First Editions!

You've reached the end of our featured Book Club Conversation, but there's always more to explore with The Page Ladies!

Join The First Editions on Bindery for our full, extended author interviews and exclusive book club content. It's where our readers can dive deeper into conversations with authors, discover the stories behind their stories, and enjoy the complete experience of our Book Club Conversations.

Come join The First Editions, connect with fellow book lovers, and keep the conversation going!

🔗 Connect with Suanne Laqueur

Want to learn more about Suanne, discover her other books, or follow her writing journey? Find her around the bookish internet below.

• Official website: https://suannelaqueurwrites.com/

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/suannelaqueur/

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/swainblqr

• Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8317803.Suanne_Laqueur

• Find The Great Dane on Amazon: https://link.amazon/B0iVn38NN

📚 Let's Talk Books, Page Ladies!

Now we want to hear from you!

Which part of Suanne's conversation resonated most with you? Was it the inspiration behind the Three Hares mystery, her thoughtful approach to grief and friendship, the idea that three can be a magical number in love, or her advice to aspiring writers?

And if you've read The Great Dane, we'd love to know what stayed with you after the final page.

Share your thoughts in the comments, and let's keep celebrating the authors, stories, and connections that make our bookish community special.

Because at The Page Ladies Book Club, there's always room for one more story and one more friend at the table. 💕📚

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