Category: Location

Guest Blogger ~ Helen Hynson Vettori

~ patyjag ~ 4 Comments

  Helen Hynson Vettori wrote the sci-fi political thriller, Black Swan Impact, because of her utter dismay regarding the U.S. Federal Government’s response to SARS COVID-19. When COVID-19 emerged, she had already retired from the Department of Homeland Security workforce. During her years of service, she helped plan and prepare for biological threats, to include pandemics. She rose to a position as an emergency management fellow and even won an award for outstanding emergency management achievements related to her efforts for planning and preparing for biothreats. As the COVID outbreak gripped the world, she became increasingly appalled by official actions or lack thereof compounded by confusing messaging.
     During lockdown family phone calls or Zoom meetings, Vettori would ask questions like, “How can this be?” or “Why aren’t they using the pandemic plan with the strategies and messaging that have been in place for years?” In response, her sister turned those questions toward an idea. She challenged Vettori by saying it sounded like she had a story bottled up inside. That observant sister was right. Vettori wrote the first draft of Black Swan Impact, first titled Black Swan Catastrophe, in two weeks. Then both her brother and her sister helped the author to focus on certain aspects of the plot and characters, expanding and enhancing them until Vettori ultimately brought the sci-fi political novel to fruition.
     One can argue that Black Swan Impact is fiction and improbable. Yet there are truths woven throughout the novel, including the fact that some people will or won’t follow orders and strategies, particularly when they are politically motivated and garbled in messaging. The truths embedded in Vettori’s novel stem from her vocational subject matter expertise and life experiences. Helen Vettori NEMAA, NSFP-EM appeared in her signature block when she was a member of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) workforce. The professional acronyms signified her subject matter expertise in emergency management. She earned noted knowledge and skills over the course of years through education, valuable mentoring from those immersed in the field, applied applications, and leadership initiatives. She even received affirmation of her contributions by being awarded employee of the year award in 2013. However, her career in DHS as an emergency manager did not solely influence her as she wrote Black Swan Impact. Indeed, there were other elements that enabled her to create a plausible world facing an unimaginable threat from a novel, virulent pathogen. Her eclectic background afforded her unique, first-hand knowledge that she wove into the plot. Those other career paths were serving the National Capital Region as an EMT paramedic by joining the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue Squad, acting as a senior medical intelligence analyst at the Protective Medicine Branch, earning a master’s degree in strategic intelligence, and becoming a staff member of Counter Narcotics and Terrorism Operational Medical Support.
     When it was time for her to retire from the federal government, she devoted her full attention to endeavors like travel until the 2020 pandemic lockdown barred that. Like everyone, she fell captive to the situation. Her frustrations regarding the muddled response led her to write, which became cathartic. Vettori credits that process for her to be able to move away from anguish and disbelief by channeling those emotions into the sci-fi political thriller, Black Swan Impact. They allowed her to craft a plot laced with credibility and striking scenes garnered from some of her amazing life journeys. Further, she hopes the story will enable readers to learn from the dystopian tale. “If readers think COVID ruined 2020,” she said, “then they can leap to 2113, to see how PYV more than challenges humanity in my sci-fi political thriller Black Swan Impact. Then readers can take away the implied warnings and combine them with our memories of COVID pandemic issues to help us to avoid repeating mistakes during future crises.”

BLACK SWAN IMPACT

In 2113, people inhabiting the Earth believe that peace and prosperity will forevermore be their way of life on the third planet in the Sol System and elsewhere as they move further into space. That optimism bursts, when Dr. Syia Case, Director of Epidemiology from the National Institutes of Health and wife to the White House Chief of Staff, raises the alarm that Earth is facing an emerging pandemic crisis the likes of which had not been seen before. Initially, President Daniel Piper looks to Dr. Case as his favored subject matter expert to assist him and the White House Crisis Action Team plan and prepare for and respond to the novel pathogen. However, when Piper steers the United States toward questionable courses, Dr. Case and the strident voices on the task force find there is more than a virulent virus to fight.

 Austin Macauley Publishers – https://www.austinmacauley.com/us/book/black-swan-impact 

Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/Black-Impact-Helen-Hynson-Vettori/dp/B0CVLHG3TY

Barnes And Noble – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/black-swan-impact-helen-hynson-vettori/1144944171?ean=9798889100911 

A seventh generation Washingtonian Helen Hynson Vettori served the National Capital Region first by joining the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue Squad as an EMT/Paramedic. Then she taught at a private school in Rockville, Maryland until 2001. Post 9/11, she joined the Department of Homeland Security workforce as the Senior Medical Intelligence Analyst at the Protective Medicine Branch. When that branch was defunded, she transferred to a new position at the National Incident Response Unit. There she performed all aspects of emergency management duties but specialized in planning and preparing for biological incidents to include pandemics. After retiring from the federal government, she followed passions like reading, traveling, and painting. Currently, she lives in Leesburg, VA with her husband. Vettori and her husband have two grown children both of whom are married and one grandchild. 

https://helenhvettori.substack.com

Instagram (@HelenHVettori), and Facebook (@ Black Swan Impact)

Painting by the author and photographed by Megan Genova

Guest Blogger ~ Pamela Fagan Hutchins

~ patyjag

Vigilante with a Badge in the Modern West: Delaney Pace

My Delaney Pace Series is set in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, present-day—the real-life Modern West. It’s a setting I know well. I live there, right on the eastern face of the Bighorns near Sheridan. For the book, I created the fictional town of Kearny. Its name was inspired by Fort Phil Kearny near Story. My husband and I used to live across the street from its ruins and the museum that now stands in its place. That setting has fueled many of the books I’ve written.

But any good series is driven by its lead character more than anything, so it is with that in mind that I present to you my vigilante with a badge, Deputy Investigator Delaney Pace. My friend Daisy is the inspo for Delaney, and you couldn’t get more Modern West than Daisy—or more kick ass.

A few years ago, my husband Eric posted that we were giving away rusty, fire-damaged barbed wire. One of the takers was Daisy, who showed up with her family to claim some to use for a project.

We soon learned that she’d given up oil field trucking in North Dakota—and a side gig as a reality star— for taking over the family homestead, raising her second daughter twenty years after her first, and being a service to others through philanthropy and her physical labor. She was a key player in organizing one of the largest agricultural relief efforts in the history of the United States through a huge convoy of truckers, donors, and volunteers after historic fires devastated America’s Midwest. She and her family raise (and butcher) a large flock of turkeys every year to feed 300+ people at a free community Thanksgiving dinner.

Daisy’s the one you want as your second in a knife fight, who could have been a model or actress instead of a rodeo star and extreme trucker, and she’s the friend you can knock back a cold one with or take to meet your pastor (after you’ve done your best to prepare them for the encounter). If by some small miracle you find her in a church, you won’t see her sitting in the pews… she’s the one standing in the back.

She was forged in the kind of volcanic upheaval that can result in smoking rubble or beautiful rocky mountain ranges. Daisy, through character and force of will, is the latter. If you enjoy Delaney as much as I do, it is because of my friend Daisy. {Daisy, thank you for agreeing to let me reshape you in fiction.}

Whether it is her love for her niece, her desperate need to find her father’s killer and unravel the mystery of her mother’s disappearance, or her passion for hunting down killers (and for the handsome deputy she works alongside), Delaney goes all in. Her spirit embodies the Modern West. Rugged, self-reliant but selfless, with one foot in 1950 and one in 2024.

I think she and I have a long road to travel together, and I’m thrilled to ride shotgun on her fictional journey.

Hop in with us—we’d love to have you, too!

Pamela Fagan Hutchins

Catch Delaney Pace in her latest adventure: HER FORGOTTEN SHADOW https://amzn.to/3Nh54xYA violent storm erupts over the small town of Kearny, bringing a devastating mudslide. Amongst the debris, the worn threads of a child’s blanket, hides the body of a young girl, her long dark hair matted with the fallen earth that killed her.

When the rescue team find rope marks around the ankles of the teenage girl, they call in Detective Delaney Pace. Fourteen-year-old Marilyn Littlewolf went missing five years ago after moving to Kearny from a local reservation. Fearing she was dead, nobody expected Marilyn to ever come home. So where has she been? And why is her body covered in bruises?

Delaney thinks Marilyn was held captive in the mountains that tower above the town, but with acres of remote wilderness to search, the investigation seems impossible. Diving into Marilyn’s case, one name stands out that makes her blood turn cold as ice: her friend and longstanding babysitter to her two adopted daughters, Skeeter Rawlins.

Racing to his home, she finds it in disarray, it’s clear he left in a hurry. In disbelief, Delaney takes in the empty whisky bottles and wonders if she was wrong to trust her reliable old friend with her darling girls?

As evidence piles up against Skeeter, Delaney’s heart shatters when another girl is reported missing. Tracing her to a remote cabin deep in the woods, she fears she’s about to finally uncover the truth about her once-trusted friend. But when she bursts into the disheveled shack nothing could have prepared her for what she finds. Was she wrong to suspect Skeeter as the twisted mind behind the missing girls? And is she already too late to save another innocent life?

Pamela Fagan Hutchins is a USA Today bestselling and Amazon All Star mystery/thriller/suspense author with books in ten languages, who believes in soulmates, loves to laugh, travels too much, and lives out the adventures in her books at a rustic lake camp at Maine’s Mooselook Lake and in an off-the-grid lodge on the face of Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains with her husband, sled dogs, and draft horses. She’s currently along for her husband’s year-long assignment on the Mediterranean coast of France, writing her fifth Delaney Pace crime thriller in a tiny village where no one speaks English or has ever seen Alaskan malamutes before… and loving it.

Website: http://pamelafaganhutchins.com

Mailing list with free starter library: https://pamelafaganhutchins.com/pages/the-next-chapter-with-pamela-fagan-hutchins

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/pamela-fagan-hutchins

Facebook http://facebook.com/pamela.fagan.hutchins.author

Pamela’s Posse for Readers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/pamelasposse

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/pamelafaganhutchins Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pamela_fagan_hutchins/

Guest Blogger ~ Lorie Lewis Ham

~ patyjag ~ 10 Comments

The Birth of My Main Character Roxi Carlucci

By Lorie Lewis Ham

The main character in my latest book, One of You, the second book in my Tower District Mystery series, had a bit of a journey before discovering where she belonged. Here is her story.

In the early 2000s, I wrote a mystery series that featured a gospel-singing amateur sleuth named Alexandra Walters. She lived in a fictional version of my hometown of Reedley called Donlyn. While writing the final book in the series, The Final Note, which came out in 2010, I started thinking about what I wanted to do next.

There is a character named Stephen Carlucci who has been with me from the very beginning. He has never had a series of his own, but he has been present in every book I’ve written. So when my last series ended I set him up to move on as well since Alex ended up with someone else and not him. The original plan was for him to move to the coast of California near Santa Cruz where his cousin Roxi Carlucci lived. First, though, I had to create Roxi.

I had decided to write a new series featuring Roxi set in a fictional town on the coast of California called Ayr. She ran a pocket pet animal rescue (hamsters, guinea pigs, pet rats) and wrote children’s books. When I first came up with this idea there weren’t any animal rescue cozies that I was aware of and it was a world I knew well having run an animal rescue for several years. It seemed like a perfect idea. I introduced Roxi in The Final Note, even including some chapters from her point of view. Done with the intention of immediately starting her series after that.

Alex had been too much like me, so I wanted Roxi to be different. I started by making her tall—I am not quite five feet. She is also braver than I am, and far more outspoken. By making her Stephen’s cousin, she automatically had a darker side as they come from a Mafia family, even though they both chose different paths. Roxi also knows how to use a sword—something I have since started learning myself.

When I finally tried to sit down and write the first book with Roxi, it just wasn’t working. I kept trying, but suddenly now the cozy mystery world was being flooded with animal rescue mysteries so it also no longer felt unique. Perhaps I wasn’t able to write it because it just wasn’t the right series for Roxi. The world I created for her just didn’t work. But since I’d already created Roxi, I didn’t want to let her go. So what was I to do with her?

While I was pondering that question, I was also creating my online magazine called Kings River Life (KRL), and that began taking up a lot of my time. But it also ended up leading to the answer to my dilemma with Roxi. While half of KRL covers mystery, the other half is all local (I live in the San Joaquin Valley of California near Fresno). We cover local arts and entertainment, food, and animal rescue, among other things. One day while in Fresno’s arts and entertainment district to review a play it dawned on me that this area would make a great setting for a mystery series! This district is called The Tower District! Hence the Tower District Mysteries came to be.

Roxi however, lived on the coast of California so I had to figure out how to get her to the Tower District. I decided that I would have her lose her book contract, and have her roommate get married and move out, leaving Roxi without a way to pay her mortgage. Mean I know, but sometimes it just has to be done.

I also decided that after being dumped by Alex, her cousin Stephen moved to the Tower District and he just “happened” to have a spare room that Roxi could stay in while figuring out the rest of her life. So Roxi closed her rescue, packed up her life, and moved to the Tower District. She may not have been thrilled at first about leaving behind a lovely coastal town for the summer heat of Fresno, but by book 2, One of You, she is settling in nicely and discovering that living in the Tower District isn’t so bad. She’s made friends, started an entertainment podcast, and she is even helping to put on a big mystery event called Mysteryfest during Halloween at the local bookstore.

As to the rest of how she came to be, well oddly enough Roxi shares a lot of my interests, even if she isn’t as much like me as Alex was. Just a different assortment of them than Alex did—with a few exceptions like Frank Sinatra—come on she’s Italian!

I hope you will want to get to know Roxi in the first two books in this series, One of Us and One or You, and that you will come to like her as much as I do.

Lorie has a Giveaway of an ebook copy of One of You or One of Us winner’s choice. Just leave a comment and she’ll pick a winner

With her life on the California Coast behind her, Roxi Carlucci is beginning to feel at home in the Tower District—the cultural oasis of Fresno, CA—where she now lives with her cousin P.I. Stephen Carlucci, her pet rat Merlin, a Pit Bull named Watson, and a black cat named Dan. She has a new entertainment podcast, works as a part-time P.I., and is helping local bookstore owner Clark Halliwell put on the first-ever Tower Halloween Mysteryfest! The brutal summer heat is gone and has been replaced by the dense tule fog—perfect for Halloween!

She just wishes everyone would stop calling her the “Jessica Fletcher” of the Tower District simply because she found a dead body when she first arrived. But when one of the Mysteryfest authors is found dead, she fears she jinxed herself! The Carlucci’s are hired to find the killer before they strike again. Will Mysteryfest turn into a murder fest? How is the local gossip website back, and what does it know about the death of Roxi’s parents?

Buy links-

Ebook amazon https://tinyurl.com/83befuae

Amazon print https://tinyurl.com/tb79uukj

Barnes and Noble.com ebook https://tinyurl.com/4trwukbb

Barnes and Noble.com print https://tinyurl.com/yf3kyhxj

Kobo https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/one-of-you-3

Universal Buy Link https://books2read.com/u/m0eWAy

Lorie Lewis Ham lives in Reedley, California and has been writing ever since she was a child. Her first song and poem were published when she was 13, and she has gone on to publish many articles, short stories, and poems throughout the years, as well as write for a local newspaper, and publish 7 mystery novels. For the past 14 years, Lorie has been the editor-in-chief and publisher of Kings River Life Magazine, and she produces Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast, where you can hear an excerpt of her book One of Us, the first in a new series called The Tower District Mysteries. Book 2, One of You, was released in June of 2024. You can learn more about Lorie and her writing on her website mysteryrat.com and find her on Facebook, BookBub, Goodreads, and Instagram @krlmagazine & @lorielewishamauthor.

Guest Blogger ~ Marla White

~ patyjag ~ 7 Comments

Why I Write the Un-Cozy Genre

Any time someone asks “why do you write mysteries” I tell them because it’s the only way to kill someone who irritates me and not go to jail.

And I tend to stick to cozy mysteries because I don’t want to have to learn cop procedures. Just kidding. I still do a lot of research on cop jargon, weapons, and crimes, but I like to focus on what makes characters tick more than the policy and protocols. I leave that to the more procedural driven writers because those are the kind of details you cannot get wrong and still maintain your readers’ trust.

First, let’s establish that most people define a cozy mystery as a book set in a small town. In “Framed for Murder”, the setting of Pine Cove is heavily influenced by the actual town of Idyllwild, California. Neighbors know each other, they have a dog for a mayor, and there’s only two major streets. To me, there’s something comforting about characters living in a place where nothing truly bad happens (unless you count the dead person who usually is universally disliked anyway) and often there’s a spark of romance. It’s a nice break from real life.

One of the first books I read as a kid was a Nancy Drew mystery, so detectives out of uniform who can make up the rules as they go along have always been appealing. Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe, Robert Parker’s Spenser, and of course the great Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum all get to solve crimes but bend a few laws along the way. Dick Francis’ mysteries were a huge influence as well. My first full-length novel from The Wild Rose Press, “Cause for Elimination,” has a cop as one of the main characters, but there’s also Emily Conners, professional horse trainer and part-time snoop. Besides, once you throw a little romance in there, it’s reasonable that some rules get broken. Plus, his partner is a snarky, lovable jerk who refuses to draw inside the lines anyway, so problem solved!

Which brings me to the “un-cozy” part of the story. One reviewer loved “Framed for Murder” but commented that they’d call it an un-cozy because my characters go beyond the sure steadiness of a Miss Marple. For instance, my characters’ lives are screwed up long before they find the body In the Pine Cove books, the main character Mel O’Rourke faces a fear of heights, learns how to run an aging B&B, deals with her eccentric grandmother, and solves a murder. The stakes for Mel aren’t just life or death, although there’s that too; she struggles with her identity as she has to start her life over.

In truth, I’m one of those idiots that writes in multiple genres. The idea of self-discovery is a common theme throughout all of them, whether it’s after losing a job, a cheating boyfriend, or the world as you knew it. It’s when characters are at their most vulnerable but also the most interesting. It’s one thing to know at the end of a cozy the killer will be caught, that’s kind of a given. But as a writer, I love the journey of writing a book where I have no idea what’s next for my characters beyond solving the core plot problem until I’ve outlined all the way to ‘The End’.

Old enemies become allies to unravel a deadly mystery. 

Mel O’Rourke used to be a cop before a life-changing injury forced her to turn in her badge. Now she leads a relatively peaceful life running a B & B in the quirky mountain town of Pine Cove. That is, until her old frenemy, the charismatic cat burglar Poppy Phillips, shows up, claiming she’s been framed for murder. While she’s no saint, Mel knows she’d never kill anyone and sets out to prove Poppy’s innocence.

The situation gets complicated, however, when the ruggedly handsome Deputy Sheriff Gregg Marks flirts with Mel, bringing him dangerously close to the criminal she’s hiding. And just when her friendship with café owner Jackson Thibodeaux blossoms into something more, he’s offered the opportunity of a lifetime in New Orleans. Should she encourage him to go, or ask him to stay? Who knew romance could be just as hard to solve as murder?

Buy Links

Amazon – https://bit.ly/43Uwj96

Barnes and Noble – https://bit.ly/3TKdPDu

Apple Books – https://books.apple.com/us/book/framed-for-murder/id6483932566

GoodReads – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/211106987-framed-for-murder

AllAuthor – https://allauthor.com/book/87348/framed-for-murder-a-pine-cove-mystery/

Books2Read – books2read.com/u/4Djgor  

Book Bub-https://www.bookbub.com/books/framed-for-murder-by-marla-a-white

Marla White is an award-winning novelist who prefers killing people who annoy her on paper rather than in real life. Her first full-length mystery novel, “Cause for Elimination,” placed in several contests including Killer Nashville, The RONE Awards, The Reader’s Favorite, and finishing second in the Orange County Romance Writers for Romantic Suspense. Originally from Oklahoma, she lived in a lot of other states before settling down in Los Angeles to work in the television industry.  She currently teaches at UCLA Extension and gives seminars about the art of script coverage. When she’s not working on the next book, she’s hiking, cheering on the LA Kings, or discovering new craft cocktails (to, you know, drown her sorrows over the Kings #GKG).  

Social Media Links

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/TheScriptFixer

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marlawriteswords/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarlaAWhiteAuthor

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@marlaw825

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21467766.Marla_A_White

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/marla-a-white

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3MHIzkB

Substack: https://substack.com/@marlawhite?utm_source=edit-profile-page

Guest Blogger ~ Keith Yocum

~ patyjag ~ 3 Comments

This is how I came up with the mystery premise in “A Whisper Came,” book 1 in the Cape Cod Mystery series.

There is something about the ocean that lends itself to mystery. Whether it’s the isolation of deserted beaches or the strange sound of the wind whistling through tall sea grasses, the area lends itself to a sense of uncertainty and mystery.

I live in Chatham, Massachusetts, at the elbow of Cape Cod. It has the distinction of being surrounded on three sides by salt water: Nantucket Sound, Pleasant Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean. It was founded in 1664 and incorporated in 1712. For American towns, this is old.

Along with the passing centuries has come a litany of shipwrecks off Cape Cod—estimated at 3,500—and, of course, legends. Dotting the cape are 14 lighthouses, though many are not operational.

In 2019, I toured the decommissioned lighthouse on Monomoy Island off Chatham. I had driven my boat past the lighthouse many times over the years but never set foot on the island. The Monomoy lighthouse and keeper’s house are used by the US Wildlife Service to study migratory seabird and resident seal populations.

During the tour, I was surprised by the utter isolation of the lighthouse. It took us nearly a half-hour to walk across the deserted island to reach the lighthouse and keeper’s house. We were allowed to climb to the top of the lighthouse, but there was nothing to see but sand, scrub brush, and the ocean. It was beautiful but oddly intimidating because of its isolation.

During the visit, our Wildlife Service guide chuckled when he mentioned that some researchers at the keeper’s house felt the building was haunted.

For a mystery writer, there’s nothing more intriguing than a hint of spectral disturbances in this setting. After returning to the mainland, I researched the history of this area of Monomoy Island and found unsubstantiated rumors of murders that occurred near the lighthouse in the 1860s. Several legends about ghosts on the island also provided a perfect plot twist.

As a former journalist, I decided to write a modern story involving a young reporter named Stacie Davis sent to Chatham to cover the story of an unidentified woman’s body found floating off the island of Monomoy. The fact that the woman’s body wore clothing from another era added just the right amount of intrigue.

Stacie, the lead character in “Whisper,” is a young reporter at the low end of her newspaper’s totem pole. As a general-assignment reporter, she is given a variety of stories that test her mettle. She’s not happy to be sent on the 90-mile drive to Chatham from Boston, but she’s also keen to prove she can handle any story.

I work closely with my wife, Denise, when revising a manuscript. Perhaps it’s her training as a psychologist, but she was instrumental in bringing authenticity and toughness to Stacie’s character. We have worked together on ten novels, and I always take her advice on improving character development, plot pacing, and romance (of course).

The reception for “A Whisper Came” was much stronger than I anticipated. Our local bookstore here in Chatham sells quite a few paperbacks, and I’ve just finished “Dead In The Water,” book 2 in the Cape Cod Mystery series with intrepid reporter Stacie Davis.  

I can’t wait to see what trouble Stacie will get into in book 3. She’s one tough cookie.

A Whisper Came

Stacie, a young, ambitious reporter, is sent to Chatham on Cape Cod to follow up on the body of an unidentified woman found floating nearby. Over the centuries, Cape Cod has been the site of thousands of shipwrecks, leaving the sandy shore littered with debris, legends, and ghost stories. Stacie’s editors encourage her to dig into the mix of Chatham’s quirky residents and to write about the mysteries surrounding the old Monomoy Point Lighthouse. On a lark, she makes a nighttime visit to the lighthouse with a young charter boat captain and, in the process, stumbles tragically into a dark mystery that forces her to question her sanity and the truth buried in a legend. 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093TJR9QC

B/N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-whisper-came-keith-yocum/1139508965

Ibooks: https://books.apple.com/us/book/id1570048192

Google iPlay: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=uvNWEAAAQBAJ&pli=1

Keith Yocum is a former journalist and business executive who has worked for publications including The Boston Globe and The New England Journal of Medicine. He lives on Cape Cod and is the author of ten novels. He welcomes feedback at http://www.keithyocum.com.

https://www.facebook.com/yocum.keith/