The Deadly Caress is a fast-paced story set in California. Suspenseful and thrilling, it is holds a mystery that Amanda Blake, a freelance photographer, must unravel.

Amanda tracks down her birth mother, the multi millionaire Jean Campbell. Hours after her arrival, Jean is murdered.

Amanda sets out to discover her mother’s killer. Her quest takes to Australia to find the man she thinks holds the answer to the killer’s identity. While visiting this man, she has to run for her life under a hail of bullets. Someone will stop at nothing until she is dead. If she thought things were bad enough, they are about to get much worse...

What some of my beta readers said...

"Bravo for a plot that grabs the reader! The characters are intriguing and in the early chapters you've stirred up enough suggestion of internal conflict for at least Amanda, and Dorian to make readers want to go deeper into their lives and individual situations."

"This book moves at a brisk pace from the very beginning, Amanda meeting her mother Jean for the first time after many years. The backstory surfaces rapidly, Amanda adopted out in Australia when Jean was seventeen and penniless, but now a rich widow in California able to call them back together. It is a busy plot around diverse characters eyeing a huge inheritance while a murder takes place and suspicion is rife, giving investigators a puzzle to unravel. Your prose is clearcut and to the point in both narration and dialogue, making the story easy to follow. Thank you so much for the captivating read."

Recommended to book clubs by 12 of 14 members.