Fresh Blood!

Happy New Year! We're back from our holiday break . . . and we're bigger! (And not in the ate-too-many-holiday-desserts way). (Though some of us might have done that too). (Oops).

Well. We are thrilled to announce some big changes here on the Sleuths Spies & Alibis blog!

1. We're expanding our subject matter to include THRILLERS. 

You'll still find plenty of mystery talk here -- blog posts about the craft of mystery writing, recent and forthcoming books we're excited about, and interviews with new and established authors. But there are so many books where the mystery and thriller genres converge, we decided not to limit ourselves. If a book's mysterious, thrilling, or dealing with crime, we'll consider it on our beat. Besides, there are just so many great thrillers out there now for younger readers, and many more coming in 2013 and 2104. We can't wait to share our reading lists -- and find out what you're reading too! (You can click here for a previous discussion of mysteries vs. thrillers on this blog).

2. Fresh Blood: FIVE new authors joined our blogging team!

These fantastic YA and MG authors have recently published their first books or are soon-to-debut.

This brings our total to 13 authors on this blog, which seems particularly auspicious for 2013!

Starting tomorrow, we'll be blogging every Tuesday and Thursday, as before, with Interrogation Room interviews and guest posts added at whim. We'll let our new recruits introduce themselves more fully in their first posts, but for now, here are some mug shots and rap sheets! (Oh wait, these are the good guys -- here are their dazzling author photos and bios!)

ASHLEY ELSTON lives in Northwest Louisiana with her husband and three sons. She spent ten years working as a wedding photographer but quit to focus on her writing. She has been in cake withdrawal ever since. Her YA debut, THE RULES FOR DISAPPEARING, will be published by Disney/Hyperion in May 2013, and the sequel in Spring 2014.

ELLE COSIMANO is the daughter of a prison warden and an elementary school teacher who rides a Harley. As a teen, she spent summers working on a fishing boat, baiting hooks and lugging buckets of bait. She majored in Psychology at St. Mary's College of Maryland, and set aside a successful real-estate career to pursue writing. She live with her husband and two young sons, and divides her time between her home near Washington, DC and a jungle tree house in the Mayan Riveria. Her YA novel NEARLY GONE will be published by Kathy Dawson Books/Penguin in Winter 2014, with a sequel (NEARLY LOST) coming in 2015; she is also working on two other YA thrillers.

DERON HICKS is a lifelong resident of the state of Georgia who currently resides in Warm Springs, Georgia with his wife and children. Deron is a proud graduate of the University of Georgia, where he obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting. Having obtained a degree in painting, Deron took the next logical step in life -- he went to law school (more specifically, Mercer Law School, which he loved). Deron currently serves as the Inspector General for the State of Georgia. His first MG novel, THE SECRETS OF SHAKESPEARE'S GRAVE (Book 1 in the Letterford Mysteries series) was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2012.

MARY McCOY is a librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library, and has been a contributor to On Bunker Hill and the 1947project, where she wrote stories about Los Angeles's notorious past. Mary grew up in western Pennsylvania and holds degrees from Rhodes College and the University of Wisconsin; she currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband. Her debut novel, DEAD TO ME, will be published by Disney/Hyperion in 2014. It's a YA mystery set in Golden Age Hollywood about a teenage girl who uncovers some sinister business while trying to get to the bottom of her aspiring film star sister's disappearance.

SARAH SKILTON After growing up in the suburbs of Chicago and graduating with a TV/Radio degree from Ithaca College in upstate New York, Sarah moved to sunny Los Angeles, where her blood promptly thinned out, preventing her from returning to either location. Kicking around Hollywood for ten years, Sarah worked as a movie-of-the-week production assistant, a TV extra, a freelance writer, a film reviewer, and a blogger at a Japanese marketing group. She currently reads TV and film scripts for a company that streamlines the casting process for agents and actors. She and her husband, a magician, live in Santa Clara, CA, with their young son. Sarah is a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, a fact that came in handy while writing her martial arts-themed debut YA novel, BRUISED (Amulet Books, March 5, 2013). Her second book, HIGH AND DRY (Amulet, 2014) is a YA mystery about corruption in high school.



To find out more about their books (as well as those of the other eight sleuths here), please see the "Our Books" tab at the top of our blog!

And please join us in welcoming our new Sleuths!