Ellie Bernstein loves eating and watching M*A*S*H reruns, but when people who look like characters in the series start dying, she suspects a serial killer and realizes that, after her weight loss, she looks too much like Hot Lips.
When Denise [Deni] Dietz was in the third grade, she wrote her first story, THE PENCIL WHO GREW UP TO BE A STUB. Although the assignment was to write a one-page story, using an ink pen, Deni wrote a five-page story, first-person...and she used a pencil (the narrator of her story). Whereupon, she received a failing grade for not following orders. Just like her series heroine, diet guru Ellie Bernstein, Deni doesn't follow orders unless they make sense.
Years later, after Deni had enjoyed a short-lived singing career and acting career, she sat at her typewriter, flexed her fingers, and pounded out her first culinary mystery: THROW DARTS AT A CHEESECAKE, inspired by her part-time job as a Weight Watchers lecturer. In "Cheesecake," diet club members are getting killed off at goal weight and eating as if their very lives depended on it. The second book in the series, BEAT UP A COOKIE, revolves around a group of M*A*S*H* addicts and is dedicated to Alan Alda.
Switching to a computer, Deni hit the bestseller list with FOOTPRINTS IN THE BUTTER - an Ingrid Beaumont Mystery co-starring Hitchcock the Dog. She followed that success with her stand-alone, FIFTY CENTS FOR YOUR SOUL, her "reluctant witch mystery," EYE OF NEWT, and the 3rd and 4th books in her diet club mystery series, CHAIN A LAMB CHOP TO THE BED and STRANGLE A LOAF OF ITALIAN BREAD. "Strangle" was nominated for a Left Coast Crime "Lefty" Award as the most humorous mystery of 2009.
Cloning herself into historical romance author Mary Ellen Dennis, Deni wrote THE LANDLORD'S BLACK EYED DAUGHTER. Mary Ellen's STARS OF FIRE will be out December, 2010.
Married to Aussie/Canadian author, Gordon Aalborg (AKA Victoria Gordon), whom she met on-line through a writers loop, Deni, with Gordon, collaborated on a romantic suspense, FINDING BESS, and moved to Vancouver Island, where they are owned by a chocolate Lab named Magic.
Deni likes to hear from readers. She can be reached through her website: http://www.denisedietz.com
