Stumbling Through An Unlocked Door

After postponing a career in journalism to raise her two children, Angie Stephens receives an assignment from a national magazine and sets out to make the most of a long-sought opportunity. Eager and excited, she anticipates researching and writing a feel-good tourism article about Whispering Pines' winter festival. What she doesn't anticipate is beginning her first working day by arriving in upstate New York during a blizzard, and ending the day by stumbling over a dead body. Caught up in what the police quickly classify as a murder and fueled by her enthusiasm to practice her dormant investigative skills, Angie hooks up with George Satterfield, a good-looking, quixotic man. Their fragile alliance is threatened by Angie's disturbing knowledge of George's proximity, in time and place, to the victim and murder scene. Having helped solve a murder during a weekend trip with her college-age daughter a few months earlier, Angie hopes lessons learned will spur her success.
About the Author: Although I am a seventh generation native of North Carolina's Blue Ridge Mountains, I've spent most of my adult life in State College, Pennsylvania, except for stints living in the Netherlands and Australia. Upon graduating from Western Carolina University, I was employed as a social worker in North Carolina Department of Social Services. Following a move to Pennsylvania, I attended graduate school at Penn State University, earning a Master's in Public Administration and a Ph.D. in Instructional Systems. In addition to caring for my six children, I ran a small business producing children's travel books. The most popular, My Washington DC Activity Book, was sold in major gift shops throughout our nation's capital. It is now out of production. Because of my lifelong love of words, I turned to fiction writing a few years ago. "The Night the Dancing Stopped", the debut novel in "The Nosy Chicks Mysteries Series", was published in 2014. "Stumbling On Wet Grass", the debut novel in "Stumbling into Murder Mystery Series" was published in 2015. "Stumbling Through an Unlocked Door", the second book in the "Stumbling into Mystery Series", was published in 2016. "Deadly Delivery to Amsterdam", a romantic mystery, is partially completed and is my first book to combine my love of writing with my love of international travel. With my six children as adventurous traveling companions, we've visited approximately fifty countries on six of the seven continents - Antarctica remains to be decided. I truly love experiencing the natural, exotic, manmade, tacky, breathtaking, bizarre, ancient and mindboggling wonders of this diverse planet we inhabit. I used to be afraid I'd run out of destinations but the more I travel, the more places I discover to go. I follow the advice of fellow wanderer, Mark Twain: "The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page." I am a member of the North Carolina Writers' Network (NCWN), Net-West division-NCWN, and the Writers' Guild of Western North Carolina (WGWNC).