Judy Jance is a storyteller.

During a recent book signing at Barnes & Noble in Bellevue, the New York Times bestselling author, who goes by the pen name J.A. Jance, entranced the audience with her vivid accounts of real life experiences and the active lives of the characters in her books.

Writing since the early 80s, Jance, who lives in Bellevue, has 40 books under her belt, including three separate thriller series based around the characters of Ali Reynolds, Joanna Brady, J.P. Beaumont and three interrelated thrillers featuring the Walker family. In her newest suspense novel, Jance revisits the character of Ali Reynolds in “Trial By Fire.”

Jance has become known for her strong voice as a writer and detailed character development over the past three decades.

Her characters, she says, have taken on a life of their own.

“One of the things that I have noticed about my characters is that they are really sneaky. Just because I’m not watching them doesn’t mean they’re not doing stuff,” she explained. “For instance, between Joanna Brady (book) four and (book) five, her mother eloped with a medical examiner. When Joanna found out about that she almost wrecked her car. Well, I almost dropped my computer, because I didn’t know it either!”

After years of writing, Jance says she is still not a fan of outlining the story line before she sits down to write.

“I hated outlining when I first met it in sixth grade geography,” she explained, adding that she usually doesn’t know who the murderer is in a book until she writes it down on paper. “I’m often just as surprised as my readers are.”

Jance admits even after all this time it’s still difficult to start a book, but finishing one is still just as much fun.

“Just because this is my 40th book, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any easier. I still write one step at a time.”

Jance has come a long way since her first book was published in 1985, a Detective Beaumont book, “Until Proven Guilty.” As a single mother of two, Jance sat down to write her first book three years prior, a slightly fictionalized version of a series of murders that happened in Tucson in 1970. The book was never published. She decided to try her hand at a fictional novel. Her gamble paid off.

“The first book I wrote was never published, but writing that book taught me how to write and taught me about dialogue and pacing,” she said, remembering back to her first book contract which was worth only a couple thousand dollars. “Now my books are worth seven figures.”

Lindsay Larin can be reached at 425-453-4602.

For more information on J.A. Jance and her new novel, Trial By Fire, visit www.jajance.com.