Hello, friends. Today as I was working on what will be my fifth cozy mystery, I started to think about my journey to becoming an author.  I trace it back to my seventh grade English class. That's the year I decided I was going to be an English teacher. I had a young, female teacher who always wore the most beautiful sweaters. That's the main feature that I recall about her after all the intervening years. When I think about it, it was sort of a weird time to decide I wanted to teach English. After all, seventh grade English was all about grammar and diagramming sentences. Do they even do that anymore? Anyway, I was good at it, and that is probably what pushed me toward becoming an English major. Maybe all those Nancy Drew books had something to do with it too. Well, my path sent me on to college where I graduated with a degree in English, and I went on to teach. So much for planning my life out.

After three years of teaching at a private school in New Jersey, I moved. Way back then the market for teachers was flooded, so, of necessity and a desire to eat, I had to find another job. This change ultimately led me to work at a Health Policy Center at Georgetown University, and from there, I stayed in the health care field until I retired. Now I was never a care provider. My specialties were business planning and government relations. Don't ask. It's still a mystery how I ended up there. But, interestingly, all of my work seems to have included a lot of writing.  So, when all the years in this profession came to an end at a ripe old age which I will not reveal, I knew I had to move on. It was easy for me to start writing Dog Days In Italy: How I Became an Expat Dog, a story based on my Italian life, but once that rather biographical book was completed, I just kept writing in various genres. 

Now I have been writing cozy mysteries for a couple of years. It seemed like the right genre for me as much of my reading is cozy mysteries and my television watching is generally mysteries. My latest cozy mystery, Death Wore Sunglasses, set along the Amalfi Coast, is coming out in a few weeks. In this book Chiara and friends leave the troubles of Venice behind and head to Sorrento and Positano for some fun and sun, but it just never turns out like they plan. Because nothing ruins a trip to the Amalfi Coast like murder. 

Some of my beta readers think it is the best one yet in The Glass Ceiling Club series, but I'll leave it to you to decide. Keep a watch for the book, and don't forget to leave a review.  Until next time, happy reading. Maree