With any group of people in life, sad things happen, and crazy things, and happy things. When you're in the public eye, it's just amplified, that's all.
For me the Anita series is built like a mystery series, which means that as much as possible each book stands alone, so you have a mystery to solve from the beginning to the end of the book.
The nature of God is a circle of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.