Hi everyone. Just FYI, I have one title currently available in ebook form (in a variety of formats) at Desert Breeze Publishing, with five more books to follow through June 2011. CHERISHED WITNESS is also available at Amazon for the Kindle, at ebookreader.com, and B&N.com. Barnes & Nobles is about to come out with the Nook, a new ereader that looks fantastic and uses the new Android operating system. I’m going to get one.
CHERISHED WITNESS is the first book in my New Orleans Detective series. In it, Kelly Watson, aka Teresa Pastral, threw the Fifth Amendment out the window when she testified against her mob boss husband at his murder trial. Now divorced, she has begun a new life in the Witness Security Program. Only–the mob finds her, thanks to handsome lawman J.T. Romano, who uses her as bait to lure the man who murdered his wife and unborn child to town. To ensure her safety, she is forced to trust J.T., the man who has betrayed her to the mob. But can she also protect her heart?
Hope you’ll check it out here. In addition to that book, I have six ebook titles out at Cobblestone Press. They are available here. All but one are suspense, and a few are hotter than others. In addition to those, SKELETON BAYOU will be released in December from The Wild Rose Press in both ebook and print. You can read more about it here.
On another note, last week at the Citizen’s Police Academy, we toured the Hinds County Detention Center, a facility that houses 594 male inmates. Next door to it is the Hinds County Joint State-County Work Center, a facility for misdemeanor offenders that houses 200. Another jail downtown houses 200 mostly female inmates. I was amazed at the size of the detention center and now know that I never want to go to jail. Not. Ever. To say I felt claustrophobic in there was an understatement. I admire the men and women who work there. They’ve got to be tough just to walk in the door. Kudos to all of them!!
This week we’ll hear from investigators. I’ll do my best to report back on that session on Friday. Should be a good one. Then Saturday night I have my ride-along. Can’t wait!!
You can check out all my titles on my website here. Hope you drop by!

This week during our Sheriff’s Department Civilian Police Academy class, we heard from the Warrant Division, the Civil Process Division, and the Crime Lab, or Crime Scene Unit. A big brutish guy gave the talk on warrants, and told us stories about dragging people out of crack houses with lots of backup. Looking at him, I was surprised he needed it. I learned so much in a short period of time, about warrants, indictments, serving them, and the like. Important procedural tidbits I will definitely use in my books.
Hi everyone! I’m currently attending a Citizen’s Police Academy sponsored by my local sheriff’s department, and I’m loving it. Last week, we learned about the court system. And last night, we leaned about the SWAT team, the reserves, who are really active in this jurisdiction, and DUI enforcement. 


Hi everyone! Tonight, September 28, I’ll be interviewed on Blog Talk Radio during the show What’s Hot in Romance. After this date, you can go
Finally, we have new TV shows! I watched Castle (my second obsession) on Monday night and absolutely loved it. What a great show. If you haven’t read Lee Lofland’s recap of it, which he posts on Tuesdays on his blog called The Graveyard Shift, you don’t know what you’re missing. You can see it
Last week was the most prolific writing week for me in quite a while. The reason? I spent five days in Florida with four writing pals, writing, swimming, eating, enjoying the beach, and just generally goofing around. We had a blast! I won nine dollars playing the lottery (Lame, I know. Right? lol) and chowed down on lots of shrimp. We ate at The Crab
Trap in Perdido Key and The Original Oyster House in Gulf Shores, Alabama, in addition to eating in. One night, two of my friends fixed bacon wrapped shrimp. Yum!!
Blurb: A by-the-book cop and single dad rescues a desperate woman who’s being framed for a crime her former fiancee committed. He risks losing is job and his child if he helps her. But she, who can’t have children, risks losing her heart to the handsome father and his precious son.
Isn’t write what you know the advice given to every beginning writer? I certainly heard it, and sometimes even now I’m questioned about what I do know. I write crime fiction and have suffered my fair share of rejections like all writers have, some based on query letters alone, and I finally began to wonder why an agent, editor, or anyone else, for that matter, would think I know anything at all about crime and detectives with my credentials. I’m not a police woman, a prosecutor, or a medical examiner. Far from it. I’m a writer from the Deep South with a degree in Radio, TV, and Film and a minor in English. I’ve never worked a crime scene, apprehended a criminal, or performed a DNA test—although I’ve seen all of those things happen plenty of times on TV. Of course, we all know TV and movies are strictly entertainment fare and are not to be used for research. Not ever.














