Inside the Book:
Title: Scheduled to Death
Author: Mary Feliz
Publisher: Lyrical Underground
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Format: Ecopy
Maggie McDonald is hoping to raise the profile of her new Orchard View organizing business via her first high-profile client. Professor Lincoln Sinclair may be up for a Nobel Prize, but he’s hopeless when it comes to organizing anything other than his thoughts. For an academic, he’s also amassed more than his share of enemies. When Sinclair’s fiancée is found dead on the floor of his home laboratory—electrocuted in a puddle of water—Maggie takes on the added task of finding the woman’s murderer. To do so, she’ll have to outmaneuver the suspicious, obnoxious police investigator she’s nicknamed “Detective Awful” before a shadowy figure can check off the first item on their personal to-do list—Kill Maggie McDonald.
MEET THE AUTHOR
It hasn’t always been home—I’ve lived in five states and two countries. Traveling to other areas, I’m frequently reminded that what seems normal in the high-tech heartland can seem freakish, odd, or even alarming to the rest of the country.
I’m a big fan of irony, serendipity, diversity, and quirky intelligence tempered with gentle humor, and I strive to bring these elements into my writing. My characters, however, tend to take my manuscripts in directions I’ve never imagined. It can be a wild ride, but I love it when Maggie and her friends take charge.
While there are always traits that writers share with their characters, I assure you that Maggie is thinner, fitter, braver, funnier, and wittier than I am. Maggie is also more organized, efficient, poised, and better at thinking on her feet. We both love animals, a strong cup of coffee, cookies, and a cold glass of California chardonnay.
I’m a firm believer in professional organizations and am a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and the Authors Guild (which sounds like it should confer robes, wands, and the ability to do magic). I particularly adore the Writers’ Police Academy, where I’ve met lifelong friends who share my excitement about learning the best ways to murder someone and get away with it.
When Maggie told me she was a professional organizer, I joined the National Association of Professional Organizers and was delighted to meet organizers who generously shared their experiences stumbling on damning evidence amongst ordinary household clutter.
I’m a Smith College graduate with a degree in Sociology and a broad smattering of other subjects. I guess that makes me well suited to examine and catalogue Silicon Valley’s unique anthropological customs. I live with and have raised excellent examples of the indigenous nerd.
Before my career as a mom, volunteer, and writer, I worked in Corporate Communications, which taught me to write compelling copy about vacuum tubes and other items of limited interest to the general public. Outside the world of the Fortune 500 and nonprofits my writing credits include first-place recognition from SouthWest Writers for a young adult short story and finalist status in contests run by Writer’s Digest, Pacific Northwest Writers, and Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators. My personal essays have been published in anthologies published by Mothers At Home and Mothers of Preschoolers.
Visit her at http://www.maryfeliz.com
