Debra Goldstein

When I wrote my first book, I did so with a gun on my hip. I worked at the New York/Quebec border for ICE (although it wasn’t called that then). I routinely volunteered to work the least favorite shift: midnight to 8 a.m. because I could squeeze in some writing. We had what we called […]

I sometimes call myself an “accidental” mystery writer. I’m not an accidental writer, by any means; I’ve been telling stories since I could speak, and began writing them down shortly after. I have notebooks upon notebooks filled up with stories from my elementary and middle and high school days – stories written during class, when

Old homes have always fascinated me. Maybe it’s because I grew up in a hundred-year old farmhouse hearing stories about those who lived there long before our family. I remember looking at the towering maples in the yard, thinking of the people who planted them a century ago, and marveling at how different their lives

“If the police show up, make sure you’re holding the package.” The fellow CIA officer prepping me to meet a deep cover agent wasn’t trying to scare me, although he sure succeeded. No, he was simply being practical. I was expendable. The source wasn’t. Meeting a CIA source in a foreign country involved a head-spinning

Today is the official release day for Elevator Ride- Book 1 of the Valkyrie Brothers Trilogy—an action-packed, age-gap, rom-com mystery! For me, “release day” always conjures visions of a novel in a cage with the barred door being slowly raised in a darkened Barnes & Noble. Slowly, the novel takes its first steps into its

It is an accomplishment to write the first draft of a book, but it is an even greater feat to polish that book into something that sparkles. This post is written by a mystery author, but elements of it can be applied in total or in part to other genre fiction. As I’ve published in