NOT YOUR USUAL SUSPECTS

A group blog featuring an international array of killer mystery, suspense, and romantic suspense writers. With premises and story lines different from your run-of-the-mill whodunits, we tend to write outside the box. We blog several times a week on all topics relating to romantic suspense and mystery, our writing, and our readers. We welcome all comments and often have guest bloggers. All our authors can be contacted separately, too, using their own social media links.

We find our genre delightfully, dangerously, and deliciously exciting - join us here, if you do too!

NOTE: the blog is currently dormant but please enjoy the posts we're keeping online.


Julie Moffet . Cathy Perkins . Jean Harrington . Daryl Anderson . Nico Rosso . Maureen A Miller . Sandy Parks . Lisa Q Mathews . Sharon Calvin . Lynne Connolly . Janis Patterson . Vanessa Keir . Tonya Kappes . Julie Rowe . Joni M Fisher . Leslie Langtry

Our Authors



DARYL ANDERSON 
Daryl is a USA Today bestselling mystery author. Her debut novel Murder in Mystic Cove is the first entry in the Sunshine State Murders, a series of mysteries set in north Florida and featuring resourceful PI Addie Gorsky. Addie’s adventures continue in the forthcoming Death at China Rose. Daryl lives in Gainesville, Florida with her husband and three dogs. When not plotting homicide, she enjoys gardening, vegetarian cooking, and cycling.



BETH DRANOFF

Beth Dranoff is the author of the Mark of the Moon series (Mark of the Moon and Betrayed by Bloodpublished by Carina Press/Harlequin. Shifting Loyalties, book 3, is expected out Spring 2018. Beth Dranoff lives in the Greater Toronto Area with her family, dog, and more books than she can count. Is it before noon? Then there’s probably a mug of coffee nearby. 

Follow her on Twitter (@randomlybibi), like her on Facebook or check out her site at bethdranoff.com for updates and news.




SHARON CALVIN

I started as a voracious reader before becoming a writer. In grade school I remember how frustrating it was that my local library limited the number of books I could check out based on what grade I was in. It made for a lot of trips to and from the library until I hit fifth grade—then it was limited only by what I could carry. I was in heaven!
My transition to writing evolved not just from reading, but from my love of words. By junior high (middle school for the younger set) I was spending part of my study period reading a dictionary. Synonyms are not interchangable! Subtle nuances in meaning, or more often in the connotation, rather than a word's denotation, can have a huge impact on a reader's response. I loved trying to find the right word to evoke a specifc emotion; something I'm still working on today.
Over the years my passions ebb and flow with current interests (art, horses, photography, snow skiing, scuba diving, target shooting...) but the loves that have stayed constant are reading, writing, and my husband (38 years and counting!)
I've been writing seriously since 1999 when my sister talked me into taking a creative writing course at Johnson County Community College, where she taught English. The instructor, Juliet Kincaid, was fabulous. I learned not only about good solid writing structure, but how to give, and receive, critques. That, along with the thick skin needed for rejections, went a long way towards keeping me moving forward in my writing career.
I joined Romance Writers of America in 2000. I've been a Golden Heart finalist twice, served on the board of my local chapter four years, and received the "call" in July, 2014 the week before the RWA National Conference in San Antonio, Texas. Yes, it was the best conference ever!

http://www.sharoncalvin.com/



LYNNE CONNOLLY

Lynne writes for a number of publishers. She writes romantic suspense, paranormal romance, contemporary romance and historical romance. She is the winner of two Eppies (now retitled the EPIC ebook awards) and a goodly number of Recommended Reads etc from review sites.  
While these are very gratifying, that isn't why she writes. She wants to bring the stories in her head to life and share them with others, in the hope that they might give her some peace.
She lives in the UK with her family, cat and doll's houses. Creating worlds on paper or in miniature seems to be her specialty!

Twitter – @lynneconnolly

Joni M. Fisher is a an active member of the Florida Writers Association and Sisters in Crime. Books in her Compass Crimes Series have garnered attention in Publisher's Weekly and earned recognition in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Royal Palm Literary Awards, Reader's Favorite 5-star reviews, and US Review. 

For more information, see www.jonimfisher.com | Twitter 





JEAN HARRINGTON

Jean Harrington swears she ingested ink as an infant, for words are in her blood. Her first job was writing advertising copy for Reed & Barton, Silversmiths, and Jean claims she has the spoons to prove it. Then for 17 year, she taught English literature at Becker College in Worcester, Massachusetts. After moving to Naples, she began dreaming of murder—and the award winning, tongue-in-cheek Murders by Design Mystery Series is the result. Currently working on a new series, Jean is up to her knees in dead bodies and loving every minute of it.

Murders by Design Mystery Series





TONYA KAPPES


For years, USA Today bestselling author Tonya Kappes has been publishing numerous mystery and romance titles with unprecedented success. She is famous not only for her hilarious plot lines and quirky characters, but her tremendous marketing efforts that have earned her thousands of followers and a devoted street team of fans.​


Email Tonya at Tonyak11.tk@gmail.com





VANESSA KEIR 


Vanessa Kier spends way too much time thinking up ways she can torture her characters. A worst-case scenario thinker, she's been creating stories in her head since childhood. Now she’s found her niche in writing romantic thrillers that combine intense emotion with action-packed plots. The author of six books in The Surgical Strike Unit series about a privately run special operations group, she has set her new series WAR in West Africa, where she lived for a time.

When she’s not writing, listening to music, or playing puzzle games on her mobile device, Vanessa writes the occasional Tech Talk column for her local RWA chapter's newsletter and takes long hikes in the nearby hills.

Vanessa's websitePinterest | Twitter | Facebook | Google Plus | Goodreads




LESLIE LANGTRY


Leslie Langtry is the author of the Merry Wrath Mysteries, Bombay’s Greatest Hits series, Sex, Lies, & Family Vacations, The Hanging Tree Tales as Max Deimos and several books she hasn’t finished yet, because she’s very lazy.

Leslie loves puppies and cake (but she will not share her cake with puppies) and thinks praying mantids make everything better. She lives with her family and assorted animals in the Midwest, where she is currently working on her next book and trying to learn to play the ukulele.

Leslie’s favorite color is orange and her favorite flavor is sugar.


You can visit with Leslie at her website, on Facebook and on Twitter.






LISA Q. MATHEWS



Lisa grew up on a steady diet of Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie. She was a lifeguard, a competitive figure skater, and a Nancy Drew editor before starting to write her own mysteries. She was also Creative Director at Random House Children’s Books and wrote under pseudonym for kids’ series such as Mary-Kate and Ashley and The Lizzie McGuire Mysteries. A native New Englander, Lisa has lived in Brooklyn, Boston, CT, Atlanta, and Nashville. Mom to three grown kids, she now resides in New Hampshire with her husband, a lucky black cat, and a crazy Golden Retriever. Like her co-sleuths, twenty-something Summer Smythe and seventy-something Dorothy Westin, Lisa enjoys swimming, rich desserts, Nora Ephron movies, and above all a good mystery. Titles in The Ladies Smythe & Westin series from Carina Press include CARDIAC ARREST, PERMANENTLY BOOKED, and the very latest, FASHIONABLY LATE.

Join Lisa Q. Mathews at:
Website: LisaQMathews.com
Facebook: LisaQMathewsAuthor
Goodreads: Lisa Q Mathews
Twitter: @LisaQMathews



MAUREEN A. MILLER

As a programmer in an industry that demanded constant travel, Maureen sought escape by making use of her laptop and writing exotic tales.  Listening to the airport speaker rattle off another flight delay, Maureen rattled off another romantic suspense novel.

Her first romantic suspense, Widow's Tale was a Golden Heart finalist.  Coming this May, Carina Press will be releasing her latest romantic thriller, Endless Night

Generally, when you read one of Maureen's books you can count on needing mittens and a wool hat.  She tends to write blustery ones!




Follow Maureen at:
FACEBOOK: Facebook Fan Page





JULIE MOFFETT

Julie Moffett is a bestselling author and writes in the genres of historical romance, paranormal romance and mystery. She has won numerous awards, including the prestigious PRISM Award for Best Romantic Time-Travel and Best of the Best Paranormal Books of 2002. She has also garnered several nominations for the Daphne du Maurier Award and the Holt Medallion. Julie is a military brat (Air Force) and has traveled extensively. Her more exciting exploits include attending high school in Okinawa, Japan; backpacking around Europe and Scandinavia for several months; a year-long college graduate study in Warsaw, Poland; and a wonderful trip to Scotland and Ireland where she fell in love with castles, kilts and brogues. Julie has a B.A. in political science and Russian language from Colorado College and an M.A. in international affairs from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She worked as a journalist for the international radio station Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Washington, D.C., for eleven years, publishing hundreds of articles before “retiring” to be a stay-at-home mom and full-time writer. Julie speaks Russian and Polish and has two sons.

She enjoys interacting with readers at her website, http://www.juliemoffett.com/,



SANDY PARKS


Sandy loves building worlds with memorable characters caught up in ever changing circumstances. She writes in several genres including romantic suspense, action adventure thrillers with touches of mystery, historical romance, paranormal (Sandy Moffett), and science fiction. She has won several national writing awards including the Daphne du Maurier Mainstream Award for Mystery & Suspense, Maggie Award for Novel with Strong Romantic Elements, and The Lories for Best New Author Paranormal. Before the days of writing, Sandy was trained as a hydrogeologic scientist, taught at a university, and worked for a civil engineering firm and the Air Force flight test center. Her adventurous background comes from being a private pilot, traveling the world, hiking, scuba diving, and taking over fifteen years of Kenpo karate.

Join Sandy on social media: Website/Facebook/Blog/Twitter



JANIS PATTERSON

Janis Susan May Patterson is a seventh-generation Texan and a third-generation wordsmith who writes mysteries as Janis Patterson, romances as Janis Susan May, children’s books as Janis Susan Patterson and scholarly works as J.S.M. Patterson. She has sold eighteen or so novels and ghostwritten perhaps twice that many books.
Formerly an actress and singer, a talent agent and Supervisor of Accessioning for a bio-genetic DNA testing lab, Janis Susan has also been editor-in-chief of two multi-magazine publishing groups. She founded and was the original editor of The Newsletter of the North Texas Chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt, which for the nine years of her reign was the international organization’s only monthly publication. Long interested in Egyptology, she was one of the founders of the North Texas chapter and was the closing speaker for the ARCE International Conference in Boston in 2005. 
Janis Susan married for the first time when most of her contemporaries were becoming grandmothers. Her husband, a handsome Naval Reserve Captain several years younger than she, even proposed in a moonlit garden in Egypt. Janis Susan and her husband live in Texas with three rescued furbabies – two neurotic cats and a terribly spoiled little dog.

Twitter : @JanisSusanMay



CATHY PERKINS


An award-winning author, Cathy Perkins works in the financial industry, where she's observed the hide-in-plain-sight skills employed by her villains. She writes predominantly financial-based mysteries but enjoys exploring the relationship aspect of her characters' lives.

A member of Sisters in Crime, Romance Writers of America (Kiss of Death chapter) and International Thriller Writers, she is a contributing editor for The Big Thrill, handles the blog and social media for the ITW Debut Authors, and coordinated the prestigious Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense for several years.


When not writing, she can be found doing battle with the beavers over the pond height or setting off on another travel adventure. Born and raised in South Carolina, the setting for HONOR CODE and THE PROFESSOR, she now lives in Washington with her husband, children, several dogs and the resident deer herd.


Website  ~  Facebook  ~  G+  ~  Twitter  ~  Goodreads






NICO ROSSO

Nico Rosso was a writer in search of a genre until his wife, Zoë Archer, brought romance into his life in more ways than one. He’s created sci-fi and post-apocalyptic romance worlds, as well as working with his wife on the steampunk Ether Chronicles series. His paranormal Demon Rock series brought you satyr rock stars and the Muses who fed them. With the romantic suspense Black Ops: Automatik series, he takes you into the deep dark world of secret operations designed to protect the innocent.

http://nicorosso.com/






JULIE ROWE


Full-time author, freelance writer and workshop facilitator, Julie Rowe’s debut novel, Icebound, was released by Carina Press on Nov 14, 2011. Ten novels and eight anthologies have followed. Her most recent titles are the MEN OF ACTION boxed set and VIRAL JUSTICE book #3 of the Biological Response Team series. Julie’s articles and short stories have appeared in numerous magazines, such as Romantic Times Magazine, Today's Parent magazine and Canadian Living. Julie facilitates business writing and communication workshops at Keyano College in her home city, and has presented writing workshops at conferences in the United States and Canada. She’s also a strong supporter of life long learning and moderates a free announcement loop for the promotion of online classes, workshops and webinars. 

You can find her at www.julieroweauthor.com, on Twitter @julieroweauthor or at her Facebook page: www.facebook.com/JulieRoweAuthor.


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