Back in 2018, I began writing a new series.
My idea was to create a new protagonist who was the opposite of my Tahoe Mystery protagonist Owen McKenna. Where he was a big tall white guy, my new character would be a small Black woman named Josie Strong. Where he was outgoing, Josie would be an introvert. Where McKenna was an ex-cop, Josie Strong would be a professor of medieval history and an expert in the design of medieval weapons. Where he was self-employed and lived and worked in the mountains of Tahoe, she would teach at UCLA and live in Santa Monica.
Josie Strong and her daughter Samantha are very urban, as unfamiliar with the wilderness as a person could be.
Of course, that meant the Josie Strong books would largely take place in the wilderness!
I wrote the first four books over the course of four years while I was continuing to write the Tahoe Mystery series.
Because a series develops nuance and subtlety as it is written, and I knew I'd find many possible improvements, I decided to wait until I had four books completed before publishing them.
The result was that all four books came out the summer and fall of 2024.
Beginning with Wilderness Vacation, the series had a great hook:
'Professor Josie Strong and her daughter Samantha didn't realize they'd witnessed a crime that made powerful men want them dead. Their would-be assassin didn't realize how hard they'd be to kill...'
When the killer follows Josie and Samantha into the wilderness, he doesn't know that, while the mother and daughter are unarmed, Josie is an expert in the construction of medieval weapons. She can go into the forest and fashion a deadly weapon. Good luck, Mr. Assassin, you've met your match.
If you hadn't read them, check out the books, which are cheap on Kindle.
Meanwhile, my next Owen McKenna came out in August of 2024.
Tahoe Rescue is about a young woman named Olivia (Livvy) Paar, who gets a job working as a personal secretary for a cosmetics tycoon at Lake Tahoe. When her boss, Georgia Connor, dies in a car accident at Emerald Bay, Livvy comes to believe the death wasn't an accident. The book has the typical thrills and excitement of the other McKenna mysteries. However, its theme is unique: Pirates on Lake Tahoe!
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