Part of Series
Desperation Creek is a new romantic suspense series from RITA award winning and USA Today bestselling author Janice Kay Johnson. Known for delivering stories that combine strong, realistic characters, compelling mysteries and deeply emotional romances, Johnson follows her Cape Trouble series with Home Deadly Home, a gripping tale of murder, love…and the ominous shadow cast by the past. The eerie voice of a killer… Desperation Creek winds through stark, high desert country once known for cattle ranching. But a dying way of life means police are spread too thin, empty roads are bordered only by rusting barbed wire fences and sagebrush, and memories of the glory days barely keep desperation at bay. After her painful childhood spent in Fort Halleck, Oregon, Cassie Ward longed to escape. Yet when her father needs her after he has a stroke, she reluctantly returns to take over the county’s weekly newspaper. An anonymous caller promises her a “real” story if she’ll go see a cattle rancher…who has been brutally murdered. Cassie complies when Sheriff Grant Holcomb demands she hold back horrific details from her reporting, but when the body count rises, she becomes determined to uncover the truth – whether the sheriff likes her involvement or not. Grant had been grateful to return home after a seventeen year absence. He’s seen too much death overseas and as a big city cop, but times have changed even here. He’s falling in love with a woman who is not only still desperate to escape the town he sees as home, she has a dangerous connection with a madman using her to ensure headlines for his killing spree. Are the deaths part of a battle for leadership of the revolt against federal control of large swaths of western lands? Or is this killer motivated by long-boiling resentment that overflowed once, like Cassie and Grant, he came home again? And if so, what part will they play in his deadly plan?
Author
Janice Kay Johnson is the author of over a hundred books for children and adults. Her first four published romance novels were coauthored with her mother, also a writer who has since published mysteries and children's books on her own. These were "sweet" romance novels, the author hastens to add; she isn't sure they'd have felt comfortable coauthoring passionate love scenes! Janice graduated from Whitman College with a B.A. in history and then received a master's degree in library science from the University of Washington. She was a branch librarian for a public library system until she began selling her own writing. She has written six novels for young adults and one picture book for the read-aloud crowd. Rosamund was the outgrowth of all those hours spent reading to her own daughters, and of her passion for growing old roses. Two more of her favorite books were historical novels she wrote for Tor/Forge. The research was pure indulgence for someone who set out intending to be a historian! Janice is divorced and has raised her two daughters in a small, rural town north of Seattle, Washington. She's an active volunteer and board member for Purrfect Pals, a no-kill cat shelter, and foster kittens often enliven a household that already includes a few more cats than she wants to admit to! Janice loves writing books about both love and family—about the way generations connect and the power our earliest experiences have on us throughout life. Her Superromance novels are frequent finalists for Romance Writers of America RITA® awards. Along with her books for Harlequin, Janice has written the Cape Trouble series of romantic suspense novels, and is about to launch a new series, Desperation Creek, set in rural eastern Oregon.
