Mary Deal:  

Life Am blessed with a wonderful son (Dean Alan) who is retired from the Air Force, and lives in , Raleigh, No. Carolina. He will soon be retiring from his second 20 year career. I have lived in San Juan, Puerto Rico in the Caribbean, in England, three states, 22+ years in Hawaii. After losing my partner of 31 years, I published Grief is Love - A Memoir of Surviving Bereavement to help others living through loss. Then I moved to Winterville, No. Carolina to live nearer my son. Am an Amazon bestselling, award-winning author/writer, oil painter, photographer, former magazine editor, newspaper columnist, and Pushcart Prize nominee. My first novel, "The Tropics," an adventure/suspense, takes place in both the Caribbean and Hawaii Islands. A local newspaper editor said "...stories that shatter the myths of stereotypical islands of paradise." NOTE: This book is out of print. I have rewritten it. The new title is "Legacy of the Tropics." Have written a feature screenplay (movie script) for The Tropics, titled Sea Storm, and it placed in the Semi-Finals in the 2009 Moondance International Film Festival competition. My second novel, "The Ka," a paranormal Egyptian suspense, is an Amazon Bestseller. "Archaeologists discover a tomb in Valley of the Queens, Egypt. When they attempt to sound out the hieroglyphs, unbeknownst to them, the glyphs are coded with spells and magic that throw them back into Tutankhamon's 18th Dynasty." My first mystery/thriller, "River Bones," and Amazon bestseller and award-winner, received an Honorable Mention in the 2009 Eric Hoffer Book Awards and was a Finalist in the I2011 National Indie Excellence Book Awards (NIEA). The story is set in my hometown area. "A serial killer terrorizes residents among the lush orchards and croplands of California's Sacramento River Delta." The next book, "Down to the Needle," a mystery/thriller, and Amazon Bestseller, won a Bronze in the 2017 Global eBook Awards. It was the WINNER of the Suspense category in the 2019 Next Generational Indie Book Awards. The story takes place in a fictitious west coast locale. "A woman's long search for her abducted child leads to a young woman on death row facing lethal injection for a crime she didn't commit." My reference book, Write it Right - Tips for Authors, was a Finalist in the 2014 National Indie Excellence Book Awards (NIEA). This instruction book is a compilation of many, many of my articles on writing which were published when I was a newspaper columnist, to help authors make their prose the best that it can be. As mentioned above, my first novel, "The Tropics," has been rewritten, expanded with a new ending. The new title is "Legacy of the Tropics." The three entwined novellas, Promises, Adrift, and Reunion, take place in areas I have lived in the Caribbean and Hawaii. These conjoined stories are fictionalized from my own harrowing escapades. My first collection of "over-the-top" short stories and flash fiction, is titled "Off Center in the Attic." This volume contains 30 short stories and flash fiction pieces. Several short stories have also won awards. One story, “The Last Thing I Do,” was nominated for the coveted Pushcart Prize. The first sequel to River Bones is “The Howling Cliffs, an Amazon Bestseller, won the Bronze in th...Expand for more