Wake of Echoes

To be Fair… I heard a political analyst use this phrase on a news channel this morning. The analyst to his right immediately laughed. “To be fair?” she scoffed. “How can you pretend your analysis is in any way fair ?” And so it goes. And doesn’t it feel like this political season is worse than ever? In a series of posts over the next couple of months, I’m going to attempt to address issues of fairness, truth, accuracy and bias. Why am I qualified to do this? First, I have a degree in journalism and studied media bias extensively during my years at Arizona State University. Second, I am completely and utterly disenchanted with BOTH presidential candidates this year, meaning I’m not inclined to defend either of them. If that doesn’t sell you on my credentials, read on for my incredible insights and be prepared to change your mind! Is that a Fact? Facts are the first thing I think about when analyzing fairness, truth and bias. We all learned the difference be...

I am so excited to share this news: A Place Between Breaths was awarded an Honorable Mention for genre fiction in Writer's Digest's most recent Self-Published Book competition. Nearly 5,500 books were entered in the competition and only ten books were honored for genre fiction (that combines romance, suspense, thrillers, sci fi, memoirs, mysteries, westerns, etc. -- in other words, a very competitive field). Each books was judged in six categories*, with a high score of five points. A Place Between Breaths was awarded a FIVE in every category! Here's what the judge who read it had to say (SPOILER WARNING: A minor spoiler from the prologue is in the second paragraph): I loved this story! It is a well-written, suspenseful, crime-investigation novel that also highlights the problems of border crossings, the Mexican drug cartels, dirty DEA officers and police officers as well as their truly courageous counterparts. In addition, I loved that you began with the vie...

available November 26 on Amazon.com Next week on Tuesday, November 26, my second novel, A Place Between Breaths , will be released -- hitting Amazon shelves first in Kindle* and paperback.  Soon after, it will be available at your local bookstore and library. I'm very excited to share this story with you all -- and a bit nervous too.  While there are some mystical elements in this story, it's not as dreamy as Dream of Me.  Explaining exactly how this story created itself in my noggin is pretty much a spoiler, so if you really want to know, see me after you've read it. Here's what the back of the book tells you: When FBI Agent Rachel Mueller flies to Mexico’s Copper Canyon to recover the body of a missing American college student, she's partnered with Mexican federal agent Marius Suarez, a man she knew and loved years ago when he used an alias and worked undercover for the DEA.  Working together while trying to sort out their troubled past, Rachel and Mari...