*I'm a former pediatric emergency medicine physician
The Next Widow
*I've met a serial killer
*I walked away from two hard landings in helicopters
*I wrote my first novel, a YA fantasy, when I was 15—thankfully the manuscript will never see the light of day, it was so cliché!
*during my time as community pediatrician in Pennsylvania I made house calls
*I wrote two science fiction novels during med school, but turned to writing crime fiction during my pediatric internship after a very close friend was murdered
*I've worked as a victim's advocate
*after spending most of my life in the rustbelt and mountains of Pennsylvania (and placing all of my books there), when I left medicine to write fulltime I moved to the beach—no snow to shovel!
*CJ Lyons is the penname my nurses gave me when I got my first publishing contract
*despite the fact that I've unleashed murder, mayhem, and multiple explosions in my books set in Pittsburgh, it's still my favorite city!