Books

My novels are historically based. They take time to research but history often guides me—lending truth to a wild page-turning story. Three main characters dominate my novels.  Readers will either love, hate or love to hate them.  They’ll be with us for awhile, I tell my friends – so learn to enjoy.  My main character is strong, beautiful and independently-  minded.  Catalina Syrah takes you places you’ve never been before and leads you on escapades just like legendary Indiana Jones.   But there is a noticeable difference between Catalina and Indy.  Unlike Jones, she looks great in three-inch stiletto heels and a seamless black lycra dress.  Knives replace whips, art history substitutes for archeology and the dreaded enemy changes from the Nazis to the Ancient Assassin cult.

Fool the Eye, is written, edited and ready to be published. It begins in the Wine Country of California and moves almost immediately to the French Riviera.  It’s a book filled with glitz, grit, passion and mission. It’s a fantasy of how we might see ourselves … if we only had the guts and the nerve.    

After completing Fool the Eye I was elated to have written my first novel, but sorry to leave my characters.  They were too good, too beautiful and way too evil to leave behind.  They had to live another day – share another adventure with us.  About this time my brother, a human rights lawyer, married a Mongolian politician and moved to Ulaanbaatar.  My fate was sealed and so was the fate of my characters.  We had to go to Mongolia.  We had to learn about the people, the land, and the history. We had to feel the presence of Chinggis Khaan. I had to ride a horse on the vast green steppe of Mongolia, milk cantankerous yaks and join a camel caravan in the fabled Gobi desert! And I needed to discover the Mongolian nomads, sleep in a ger and travel the legendary Silk Road.  Research is an adventure in the making.

She Rides with Chinggis Khaan didn’t take much imagination – it was all quite real.  After months of research, travel to exotic Mongolia and searching for the secret burial mound of Chinggis Khaan – my second novel was born and my characters live again. This time they wind their way along the Silk Road -- past the destroyed Bamiyan Buddhas, the ancient trade center of Samarkand, the long abandoned stronghold of the Assassin cult and into the deadly Taklimakan desert.  Marco Polo will be watching.  Another story waits to be told.