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Death is Cyan Blue

Work in Progress

My new novel, DEATH IS CYAN BLUE, is the first in what I hope will be The Highland Hills Mystery series. It’s set in a fictional, insular, small town in north Texas, near Dallas. Here’s a taste of Dr. Prudence MacRae’s world:

In Highland Hills, Texas, the dead don’t rest easy—and neither do their secrets. Dr. Prudence “Pru” MacRae swore she’d never move back to Highland Hills—the old-money enclave of manicured lawns, magnolia blossoms, and weaponized manners. But when her husband dies, her FBI career ends, and her sister fires off an ultimatum about their failing mother, Pru packs up her grief, her synesthesia, her sensible heels and heads home.

She doesn’t even make it past the front hall.

A stranger is skewered to the polished floor of Magnolia House with Granddaddy Ray’s samurai sword. Pru’s strange gift—she sees emotion and death in color—flashes not peaceful cyan blue, but furious chili red. This is no natural passing.

This is murder.

As the town’s beloved “good ole boy” police chief, Clay Hartley, and his new detective, Henry Ballard, bungle and then battle over the investigation, Pru is pulled back into profiling mode. The Lie To Me Club—her tight-knit circle of lifelong friends—gathers over bourbon and crab cakes at Eliza Jane’s Tearoom & Tavern to pick apart alibis, motives, and the swirl of art thefts that have quietly plagued Highland Hills for months.

Paintings disappear and reappear. Blackmail notes hint at old affairs and older betrayals. Grace, Pru’s high-gloss, high-strung sister, seems more interested in skimming MacRae bank accounts than caring for their mother. And everywhere Pru turns, her synesthetic colors flare: envy maroon, deceit ultraviolet, and over it all, the deep, aching cyan of long-buried family shame. When another body turns up and all clues point to someone Pru once loved, she has to ask the hardest question of all: Can a friend or family member be capable of murder?

In a town built on secrets and Southern charm, can you ever really tell the difference between a good person who did a bad thing… and a bad person who just learned how to smile?

Death Is Cyan Blue is a warm, witty, and twisty Southern mystery about sisters, small-town loyalties, and the dangerous grace of finally seeing the truth.