PDF/EPUB Golden Lady PDF/EPUB ↠ Ð amateur sleuth.co Alexa HuntWorking my way through college provided great life experiences for a novelist One problem I didn’t know I was destined to write books Instead I floundered around during and after receiving my BA and MA in history from the University of Missouri None of my wide variety of jobs satisfied me cashier for a loan company public welfare caseworker assistant circulation manager for a small daily editor for several “house organ” newspapers administrator of a federal information program for the elderlyFinally I was offered the opportunity to use my history degrees teaching in a large urban university in the Northeast I truly enjoyed it Unfortunately when the history reuirement was dropped for incoming students so was my instructorship After that I taught gerontology sociology proposal writing for social service agencies and freshman composition at the same university Further life experiences My last two years of teaching were in remedial English—just the nudge I needed to take this writing thing seriouslySince childhood I’ve been an avid reader everything from Robert Heinlein’s sci fi adventures to Frank Yerby’s historical romantic sagas More recently I became hooked on thrillers Since childhood I had story ideas in my head but never the epiphany to write them Okay maybe I just didn’t have the courage But there were just so many times I could explain what a verb was to a college senior before I realized that maybe writing a book might be easier I sold my first novel a big historical romance titled GOLDEN LADY to Warner Books in 1985 Within two years I uit remedial comp Now I can't imagine doing anything but writing for a living In 2005 I switched over to the “dark side” Tor published two political thrillers CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY and HOMELAND SECURITY under the pseudonym Alexa Hunt I’ve also written romantic suspense for Penguin Onyx and Silhouette Bombshell as Shirl Henke Since I began my career I’ve appeared on the USA TODAY bestseller list been a RITA Finalist twice received a BookraK Bestseller Award and won three Career Achievement Awards an Industry Award and three Reviewers Choice Awards from Romantic TimesMy husband Jim Henke is a former cabdriver bartender sailor judo instructor and English professor He's a scholarly authority on obscene slang and a master at its use but an astonishingly understanding man who puts up with my all night writing sprees and sudden dashes to my desk to jot down bits of dialogue as dinner burns on the stove Since he took early retirement from academe he has helped me brainstorm plots and research my novelsAfter four years in the US Air Force our son Matt works in telecommunications and lives in an adjacent county with his brute of a cat Max Jim and I now share our cedar house in the woods with a pair of utterly adorable tomcats Inky and Pewter whose destructive capacity rivals that of a medium sized thermonuclear weapon But just as life without writing would be unimaginable so would life without catsFor therapy when I'm not at the computer or off researching a new book I cook large dinners for our extended family putter in my garden and greenhouse and still read voraciously When deadlines permit I love to travel I'm a member of the Author's Guild Romance Writers of America Missouri Romance Writers Sisters in Crime Novelists Inc and International Thriller WritersI wrote my first twenty two novels in longhand with a ball point pen it's hard to get good uills these days Dragged into the 21st century I now use one of those devil machines Another troglodyte bites the dust