The Books
Five novels. Warm Long Island family stories, and darker work where a detective named Karen Skaryd keeps turning up.
Long Island Stories
Warm, emotional, place-rooted novels of family, heritage, and first love.
Last Exit to Montauk
Summer, late 1980s, the North Shore of Long Island. Three weeks that change a seventeen-year-old forever.
Winner: Manhattan Book Awards 20201st Place: TopShelf Magazine 2019 Read More →
The Captain & The Queen
A coming-of-age romance on Long Island: the daughter of a Greek tycoon, a Hispanic boy from a middle-class family, and a love tested against every odd.
Dual-Finalist: TopShelf Book Awards 2020Fiction: Romance & Young Adult: Romance Read More →
Searching for Sarah
To honor his sister's dying wish, Tom Ruiz follows her private journals across the world to find a woman named Sarah.
Winner: Book Excellence Award 2021 Read More →Suspense & Mystery
Darker, atmospheric, international, where the past refuses to stay buried.
Fury in Her Eyes
Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Ollie Morales is attacked while covering the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The assault isn't random. It's a vendetta decades in the making, reaching back to his prep school days.
Winner: Independent Press Award 2025Winner: International Impact Book Award 2024
Bronze: FAPA President's Book Award 2025 Read More →
Death in Utopia
A dream vacation becomes a hunt for a methodical killer leaving cryptic biblical verses and chilling trophies. Detective Karen Skaryd is the only one standing in his way.
Karen Skaryd Mystery #1Short List: Clue Awards 2025, Suspense & Thriller Read More →
Meet Karen Skaryd
Before she had a series of her own, Karen Skaryd turned up in two earlier novels. Read them in order and you watch her arrive.
- First appearance Searching for Sarah
- Second appearance Fury in Her Eyes
- Her own case Death in Utopia