Jeanine Kitchel's ongoing love of Mexico led her to the Yucatan in 1983 and slightly more than a decade later, she left San Francisco for a relaxed lifestyle in Puerto Morelos, a fishing village on the Quintana Roo coast.    Kitchel writes about Mexico, the Maya and the Yucatan.  Fornerly a travel writer and bookshop owner in Mexico, she has contributed to a variety of newspapers and websites, including The Miami Herald, Fodor's Travel Guide Cancun/Riviera Maya edition, El Universal/Mexico City, The Herald/Mexico City, Mexico Premiere, Yucatán Today and Yucatán Living.         Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, her debut novel, comes out April 2018. With Layla Navarro's notorious drug lord uncle's recent recapture, she inherits top spot in Mexico's most powerful cartel. With a two million dollar drug deal at stake to cement her newly minted status, Layla finds herself in the middle of a drug deal gone bad in a stopover in Guatemala. Along for the ride are her abusive bodyguard/lover, the Canadian pot grower who put the deal together, and a coke-addicted Vietnam vet. Accidentally uncovering a sex-trafficking ring only adds to the pressure. Plagued by self-doubt she navigates the minefield of Mexican machismo, outsmarts corrupt officials and fights off gangsters in an effort to stay alive.      Kitchel's first book, a travel memoir, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, is available on Amazon Her second book, Maya 2012 Revealed, Demystifying the Prophecy, brought a realistic tone to the furor caused by December 21 2012, with emphasis on who are the Maya, the code, their calendar system. Check in with the author through her website, www.jeaninekitchel.com

Bachelor of Science in journalism.