Sibylle Barrasso
People often ask me why I would trade the blissful ubiquitous sunshine of California for the lousy weather in the Northeast. Yes, our summers are hot and humid, our winters frigid and snowy, and often downright brutal. But as the song goes, I love that “Dirty Water.” Boston has become my home, which is why I choose to set the Macy Adams series right here in our little city that only visiting tourists call “Beantown.” My original move to Boston came after a job offer from Bain & Company. Doing consulting work in high-tech, and specifically the biotech industry, provided the basis for DARK WATERS.
Laura Benedict
After spending almost twenty years writing book reviews, essays, and short stories that took themselves very seriously, Laura decided to get truly serious and write something fun. Thus, ISABELLA MOON, a supernatural thriller set in a small Kentucky town, was born. Released in hardcover by Ballantine Books in September, 2007, it will be followed by another thriller, CALLING MR. LONELY HEARTS, in Spring 2009. She lives with her husband and two children, a black Lab, and the occasional intrepid bobcat in rural southern Illinois–a lonely, enchanted sort of place that offers endless inspiration for writing thrillers.
Jennie Bentley
A career as a professional renovator and REALTOR® has given debut author Jennie Bentley plenty of fodder for her new series of Do-It-Yourself Home Renovation Mysteries from Penguin/Putnam. She has stumbled over dead bodies – those of birds, cockroaches, and the occasional rat – unearthed hidden treasure – gorgeous tile floors hidden under ugly vinyl, pristine footed bathtubs covered over with drywall – and had personal experience with just how dangerous renovating a house can be (she and her husband have come close to killing each other on many occasions while renovating the eight houses the family has owned in the past eight years). FATAL FIXER-UPPER, the first book in the DIY-series, will be released by Berkley Prime Crime in November, 2008. For more information, please visit http://www.jenniebentley.com.
Rebecca Cantrell
has a two book deal from Tor/Forge for a mystery series set in Berlin in the 1930s. “A Trace of Smoke” is due out in the summer of 2009, and “The Night of the Long Knives” is due out in the summer of 2010. “A Trace of Smoke” was also under consideration by a major cable network as a television series. Her screenplay “A Taste For Blood” was a finalist at the Shriekfest 2007: The Los Angeles Horror/Sci-fi Film Festival. She has also published short stories and essays. When she visited Berlin in the summer of 2006, she was astounded to discover that many locations in her novel have been rebuilt and reopened in the last few years, including the gay bar El Dorado and the Mosse House publishing house.
Jordan Dane
Avon/Harpercollins bought Jordan Dane’s debut suspense series in auction and is launching this trilogy in a back to back publishing event April through June 2008. “We are pursuing an aggressive release schedule,” says Avon publisher Liate Stehlik, “because we believe strongly in this author. Jordan Dane is poised to be the ‘next big thing’ in the romantic suspense genre.” Publishers Weekly called Dane’s NO ONE HEARD HER SCREAM (Apr 2008) a “dynamite debut” and compared Dane’s intense pacing to Lisa Jackson, Lisa Gardner, and Tami Hoag—romantic suspense that “crosses over into plain thriller country”. NYT bestseller Allison Brennan recommends, “Read it in the daytime and have a tall glass of ice water handy.” For more, visit www.jordandane.com.Karen Dionne’s
debut eco-thriller FREEZING POINT will be released by Berkley Books in October 2008. In addition to novel writing, Karen is co-founder and co-administrator of Backspace, an award-winning website and Internet-based writers organization with over 700 members in a dozen countries. She also organize and runs the Backspace Writers Conferences held in New York City every year. Prior to forming Backspace, Karen worked as senior fiction editor at NFG Magazine, a print literary journal out of Toronto, Canada. Her short stories have appeared in Bathtub Gin, The Adirondack Review, Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine, and Thought Magazine, where her entry won 1st place in their spring 2003 writing competition. Karen’s book-length fiction is represented by Folio Literary Management’s Jeff Kleinman. Want to know Karen here.
Stacy Dittrich is an award winning 15-year law enforcement officer and former detective specializing in sex crimes. With past training by former FBI Behavioral Specialist, and bestselling author, Roy Hazelwood, Stacy is certified through the National Institute of Truth Verification as an examiner (CVSA- lie detector). Stacy has also been assigned to a federal drug task force that resulted in arrests from California to Mexico and has been involved in the investigations of numerous homicides. Prior to her law enforcement career, Stacy explored a brief modeling career in New York, where she appeared in Allure Magazine. Stacy is the author of the upcoming CeeCee Gallagher thriller series about a female detective.
Gerry Doyle’s debut FROM THE DEPTHS is a locked-room murder mystery… except the “room” is a derelict submarine filled with corpses. Gerry is a journalist and a writer; one discipline informs the other, but he’ll leave it up to you to figure out which is which. He’s worked at newspapers all over the country and is currently at the Chicago Tribune, where he’s been an editor and reporter for the Metro section since 2001. His short fiction has been published in the U.S., abroad and on the Internet. Gerry teaches a graduate editing lab at Northwestern University.
J.T. Ellison is a graduate of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College and received her Master’s Degree from George Washington University. She was a Presidential Appointee and worked in The White House and the Department of Commerce before moving into the private sector. As a financial analyst and marketing director, she worked for several defense and aerospace contractors. After moving to Nashville, Ellison decided to begin research on a passion, forensics and crime. She spent a great deal of time working with the Metro Nashville Police Department, and utilized these experiences to write her debut novel, ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS. Her short stories have been widely published, including “Prodigal Me”, featured in the anthology KILLER YEAR: Stories to Die For, edited by Lee Child, from St. Martin’s Minotaur (January, 2008.) She is the Friday columnist at Murderati.com and is a founding member of Killer Year, an organization promoting the best debut novelists of 2007. She lives in Nashville with her husband and a poorly trained cat.
Leighton Gage
Theo Gangi’s
father worked for prison reform and from his frequent visits with him, he became aware at an early age the discrepancy of quality of life. “As a kid growing up in Manhattan during the 70’s and 80’s, I only really know the urban environment,” says Gangi. “The culture I saw was that of the urban-savvy people. It was a far different Manhattan from what you have today.” In college he caught the attention of best-selling author Madison Smartt Bell. Bell suggested Gangi go on and get a Master of Fine Arts degree. Gangi took his advice, returned home, went to Columbia University and earned the MFA. His stories have appeared in The Greensboro Review, The Columbia Spectator and The Kratz Center Sampler. His articles and reviews have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, Mystery Scene Magazine, Crimespree Magazine, 3AM Magazine and Crucial Minutiae.com, where he has a weekly column. Mr. Gangi currently teaches writing at John Jay College, CUNY.Rip Gerber
is a former biochemical engineer and technologist. He began his career at the Central Intelligence Agency, categorizing Soviet newspapers and evaluating recruits in the Psychological Assessment Division. He designed Firestone’s first chromatic polyethylene manufacturing plant, launched the financial industry’s first online credit card application while at American Express, ran global marketing divisions for two advertising agencies and served as Chief Marketing Officer for two public software companies. He received his biochemical degree from the University of Virginia and his Masters from Harvard Business School. Rip lives in San Francisco and Point Reyes, California.
Megan Kelley Hall is a freelance writer and literarypublicist living in Swampscott, Massachusetts. Her first YA novel, SISTERS OF MISERY, will be published by Kensington Books in August 2008. Hall will also have an essay about her recent open heart surgery in former CNN anchor Daryn Kagan’s anthology, WHAT’S POSSIBLE! (Meredith Books, 2008).Hall regularly writes articles for a variety of local and national magazines and publications, including Elle, Glamour, Boston Magazine, Parenting, American Baby, Working Mother, The Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Better Homes and Gardens.com, More.com, Ladies Home Journal.com, New England Bride, MetroSports, Parents and Kids, The AKC Gazette and various online publications. Hall’s writing has been included in an anthology of pregnancy stories entitled, THEY LIED: True Tales of Pregnancy. She studied creative writing at Skidmore College under the Pulitzer-Prize winning author Steven Millhauser.Andy Harp
A missile launched from deep inside
Michael Haskins
“Chasin’ the Wind” nails the colorful and often violent action in both Key West, Florida, and Havana, Cuba. It navigates corruption and small town politics in the southernmost city of the United States. It bumps into a scheme to topple Cuba’s communist government and throws Cuban exiles and military deserters, neurotic federal agents, plus a few unique Key Westers into a brew that promises international repercussions.” I live in Key West where I spent five years as the business editor/writer for the local daily newspaper and then another five years as the city’s public information officer. For more information, check www.michaelhaskins.net.
Rhodi Hawk
Rhodi Hawk has been fascinated by storytelling since her earliest memory, when her grandmother read to her from Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. Rhodi has been reading or writing ever since, and began her career as a transcription linguist in US Army intelligence. She later made a living as a technical writer during the Internet boom, working on her first novel in the early mornings and at night, and is now writing fiction full time. In 2007 Rhodi Hawk won the International Thrillerwriter’s Scholarship for her first work of fiction, A Twisted Ladder. She is also one of the founders of a new magazine, The Fruited Vine, which is due to launch in the third quarter of 2008. She travels compulsively and dabbles in the culinary arts, and lives in the Don Helin
Don Helin’s debut novel, Thy Kingdom Come, is due out in March 2009. In the novel, the Pentagon’s elite Anti-Terrorist Task Force is assigned a mission of preventing a white supremacists’ rogue militia from stealing nuclear material and spreading terror by detonating dirty bombs. Don spent three tours in the Pentagon and has worked as a lobbyist for the chemical industry. These two “Washington Insider” careers have provided him ample material for his thriller novels. For more information, visit www.donhelin.com.David Isaak
David Isaak has been a dishwasher, a farm laborer, a night watchman, a dock worker, a counselor, a government researcher, an academic, and vice-president of an international consulting firm. A high-school dropout, he later went on to earn a BSc in Physics and a PhD in Resource Systems. He is an expert on international energy, and has worked in about three dozen countries, mostly in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region. He has co-authored three books and many monographs on energy issues.Julie Kramer
Julie Kramer is fourth generation of a strong family which raised cattle and farmed corn for 130 years along the Minnesota-Iowa state line. Her favorite days were spent waiting for the bookmobile. She grew up to become a freelance television producer for NBC News. Before that she won numerous national investigative awards at WCCO-TV in Minneapolis. Julie tired of fictional TV reporters always being portrayed as obnoxious secondary characters who could be killed off whenever the plot started dragging. So her debut thriller, STALKING SUSAN (July 15 from Doubleday), features a TV reporter as a heroine who discovers a serial killer is targeting women named Susan. She now lives with her family in White Bear Lake, MN. Visit her website www.juliekramerbooks.com
Will Lavender’s New York Times bestselling debut novel, OBEDIENCE, was published by Shaye Areheart Books in February 2008. The novel is a psychological thriller set on a fictional college campus. It has drawn rave reviews from the Wall Street Journal, Salon.com, the New York Times Book Review and many other publications. Will lives in Louisville, Kentucky with his wife and two small children. After receiving an MFA from Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, Will returned to Kentucky to teach college writing–a job he held for an amazing six years without going completely mad. Now he writes full-time and is working on a second novel.
CJ Lyons
As a pediatric ER doc, CJ has lived the life she writes about in her debut, LIFELINES (Berkley, March 2008). Publisher’s Weekly dubbed LIFELINES “a spot-on debut….a breathtakingly fast-paced medical thriller.” CJ loves sharing the secret life of an urban trauma center with readers. She also loves breaking the rules; LIFELINES is cross-genre to the extreme, combining women’s fiction with medical suspense with thriller pacing with romantic elements and is told from the point of view of the women of Angels of Mercy’s Medical Center. David Morrell said, LIFELINES is “packed with adrenalin. I can’t recall a hospital novel that so thrilled me.” For more information go to http://www.cjlyons.net.Grant McKenzie
Born in Scotland, living in Canada and writing American fiction, I like to cover all the bases. As a journalist, I have worked in virtually every area of the newspaper business from the late-night “Dead Body Beat” at a feisty daily tabloid to senior copy/design editor at two of Canada’s largest broadsheets. In between regular newspaper gigs, I have also contributed technology/humour columns to various magazines around the world. I currently reside on British Columbia’s beautiful Sunshine Coast with my wife and teenage daughter.Marc Paoletti, SCORCH, May, 2008
After years as an award-winning journalist and advertising copywriter, Marc Paoletti decided to focus his energy and passion on fiction of a different sort. SCORCH, his debut thriller forthcoming in hardcover from Five Star Mysteries, tells the story of a Hollywood special effects man who uses his specialized knowledge to hunt the people responsible for his son’s murder. To give SCORCH unique realism, Marc drew upon his years of experience as a Hollywood pyrotechnician, when he blew things up for movies, television shows and commercials. His short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies alongside such authors as Stephen King and Irvine Welsh, and recently he received an honorable mention in Ellen Datlow’s The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His next novel, The Last Vampire, is co-authored with Patricia Rosemoor and forthcoming from Del Rey.
A. Scott Pearson a surgeon in Nashville, Tennesee. His debut novel is RUPTURE, the first in a series of medical suspense featuring Eli Branch..
Andrew Peterson was born and raised in San Diego, California, where he attended La Jolla High School before enrolling at the University of Oklahoma, where he subsequently earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Architecture. At the age of six, Andrew won his first shooting competition at summer camp. His early fascination with rifles became a life-long devotion to excellence in marksmanship. He has won numerous competitions throughout the Southwestern United States, including a Gold Medal at the 1995 Excellence in Competition match at the Nevada State Championship, and a First Place victory at the 1994 Arizona State Championship, 1,000 Yard Service Rifle Match. Currently, Andrew holds the classification of Master in the NRA’s High Power Rifle ranking system.Andrew began writing fiction in 1990. He sold a short story, Mr. Haggarty’s Stop, to San Diego Writers Monthly in October, 1992. He continued to write, exploring both the novel form and screenplays. It wasn’t until he attended his first writer’s conference in 2005, that he became serious about telling the Nathan McBride stories. He is currently working on the next novel in a planned series, featuring the “brutally effective” former Marine Corps sniper and ex-CIA operative, Nathan McBride.FIRST TO KILL is Andrew Peterson’s debut novel, and it will be published in September, 2008 by Leisure Books, an imprint of Dorchester Publishing. Andrew and his wife, Carla, live just north of Paso Robles, California.Kelli Stanley