Elektra Natcios died, once. But the beautiful, dangerous heiress was resurrected and recruited by a mysterious group known as The Chaste, who trained Elektra in the art of combat, then cast her out when her anger and lust for vengence became more than they could bear. Now she works as a paid assassin, the very best that money can buy, one who is notorious for her lethal speed and precision. Elektra is careful to treat each assignment as just another job, providing a service she can perform better than anyone else. When Elektra is hired by an unknown client to eliminate an attractive, friendly widower and his young daughter, she finds that things aren't so simple any more. Soon Elektra is single-handedly engaged in an all-out war with the powerful criminal organization known as The Hand for the lives of the man and the child - but the ultimate struggle may be for Elektra's soul...
I was born back in the early days when black and white photographs were considered normal instead of artsy. As a child I always thought I'd grow up to be an artist, and I was was convinced I'd spend my life doing line drawings of long, leggy models like the ones in the daily newspapers. Life, however, did not cooperate: a foul-up in grammar school resulted in a transfer to a local high school instead of the technical, arts-heavy one I'd planned to attend.
Following that was a move that really made things start winding around. By the time I returned to Chicago for the second time in 1981, I'd worked as a waitress, a nurse's aide, a bookkeeper and gift shop cashier, an accounting clerk, and a secretary in everything from office furniture stores to a hotel to a journalism society. In 1981 I came back to my old job in a Chicago law firm and settled down in the Windy City for awhile. In 1982 I tried to write because my mother said "You could do this." The seed had still been planted, and I sold my first story in 1984. Since then I've written around a hundred stories, most of which have been or are scheduled to be published.
My first novel, AfterAge, was published in 1993 and was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. In 1995 my second solo novel, deadrush, was published, and it also was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award, this time in the category of Superior Achievement in a novel. Final Impact, the third solo novel, was published in 1997, and won both the Chicago Women In Publishing's Award for Excellence in Adult Fiction and the "Unreal Worlds" Award for Best Horror Paperback of 1997 from the Rocky Mountain News. Since then I've published several more solo novels, Red Shadows (a follow-up to Final Impact), DeadTimes, and That's Not My Name, her first suspense novel. That's Not My Name, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Paleo, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Willow Files, Vol. 2 all won at the Illinois State level of the IWPA 2001 Mate E. Palmer Communications contest (two first place and one second place, respectively), plus I somehow swept all three awards of the Short Story category with "Ascension," "Divine Justice," and "Santa Alma." I've also written a number of media tie-in novels, including several Buffy the Vampire Slayer novels, Hellboy, Elektra, and Ultraviolet. Full info about all her books can be found on her website along with a lot of free excerpts.
I moved to my beloved Arizona in 2002 and currently work on historic Fort Huachuca. in southern Arizona. Numerically, I'm up to about twenty novels and one non-fiction book, with those never-ending plans for more. I love heat, Godiva chocolates, and Great Danes.
