MARINE ON ST. CROIX, Minn. - Traci Lambrecht has been a singer in a rock band and a studier of Russian. But through her many endeavors across the country, one thing remained consistent: she was always a writer.
"I never wanted regrets when I got older, so I tried everything," she explained. "But writing was always at the core of it."
You could say her writing career started before she really even knew what she wanted to say.
"I had always written from the time I could hold a crayon," said Traci.
Her love for storytelling came from her mother, P.J. When she was growing up in Minnesota, her mother would read her bedtime stories - that would eventually turn to the two coming up with stories of their own, Traci recalled.
That innate passion for crafting stories only grew stronger as Traci grew up, she said.
"Even though I had many, many ambitions and wanted to kind of do everything, I always knew that I would be a writer and kind of knew, always in the back of my mind that that was something P.J. and I could do together," Traci said.
And that's exactly what they did - teaming up under the pen name "P.J. Tracy" and writing the bestselling Monkeewrench books, a mystery series which takes place in the Twin Cities.
"We were always avid thriller and mystery readers and I think part of that is really inherent because it's in our DNA to want to solve puzzles and mysteries," said Traci.
The two wrote eight books together, becoming New York Times bestselling authors in the process.
"We'd be together during the day, plot, and then come home and wait until it was dark and stay up until the wee hours writing," Traci explained.
But in 2016, P.J. was battling severe heart failure. In December of that year, at age 70, she passed away.
"We were so very close, and nobody believes me but we never had an argument," Traci said.
Despite losing her writing partner and best friend, Traci dove into finishing the next installment of the Monkeewrench series. For her, writing was a key part of the healing process, she said.
"Writing in its purest distillation is emotion, and that emotion goes onto the page, so I think it was really instrumental in helping me deal with my grief and it still is," Traci explained.
The 9th book in the series, titled The Guilty Dead, was released in August. It's the first complete Monkeewrench book Traci wrote without her mother and co-author.
"The most astounding thing was, I was surprised that it wasn't that difficult at all to make the transition to solo writing and it's because when I do it, P.J. is so vividly there," Traci said. "She's still in every single word that I write and still an inspiration."
When Traci spoke with KARE 11, she was just 30-40 pages away from finishing the tenth book in the Monkeewrench series. Nearly two years after her mother's death, she still draws inspiration for every word.
"The one thing she always said that I loved was 'Traci, magic happens when you put pen to paper, don't ever forget it,'" Traci said. "And it's true!"
You can order The Guilty Dead on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and you might want to pick up a copy because we are going to be reading it for the first book in our new #Sunrisers Book Club! Visit the KARE 11 Facebook page and click "Groups" on the left side of the page to join.
To learn more about Traci and the Monkeewrench series, visit her website here.