Ellen McKenzie, divorce decree in one hand, new real estate license in the other, returns to her home town to begin live all over. She has no idea she will find the body of a man, badly beaten, in the upstairs closet of the first house she ever tries to show.   Up to the part where Ellen finds the body, her story could be mine, however I have never discovered a body, in a closet or anywhere else. However, they say write what you know, so I did. I also was divorced in mid-life, became a real estate agent and moved my one remaining at home child, my mother and father, 5 horses 4  dogs, I have no idea how many cats to a town in California's central coast where I stayed for over twenty years. My first two books were published while I lived there and I used the town and the countryside as a setting in the series. I'd always wanted to write. I spent my childhood  with my nose in a book, and that didn't change when I grew up and had a family. But family, work, other things like making a living kept me from trying. So did the deep down conviction that I couldn't do it. But one day, I decided to really try. No more writing stories and sticking them in the cedar chest where no one went but me. The first article (I wasn't quite ready to tackle a whole book) was about our family's adventures when the kids joined 4-H.Family Fun bought it. That one thing gave me the courage to try my hand, and here I am, 5 books later, and no longer selling real estate.     

The first book in the Ellen McKenzie series was a finalist in St Martin's Malice Domestic contest. I have won an award for short fiction put on by a national magazine and have had excellent reviews by Kirkus, Publishers Weekly and Library Journal, among others. And Murder for Dessert was recognized as a Mystery Notable by Booksense