Candy Calvert
Former Californian and longtime nurse, Candy Calvert blames her quirky sense of humor on “survival tactics learned in the trenches of ER.” A firm believer that love and laughter are the best medicine, she found herself “on the other side of the stethoscope” when a serious equestrian accident broke her neck and made her a patient in her own emergency room. The inspirational account of her recovery sparked a story in Chicken Soup for the Nurses Soul, and was the official start of her writing career. Candy now combines her passions for cruise travel, emergency medicine and snarky humor in The Darcy Cavanaugh Mysteries, a series she tags, “I Love Lucy meets ER on the Love Boat--to solve a murder.” The first book--Dressed to Keel--has just been selected as a winner in the 2006 Reader Views Literary Awards. It’s sequel, Aye Do or Die, was released by Midnight Ink in February, with a third, Mai Tai to Murder scheduled for launch this September. Candy now lives with her husband in the Hill Country of Texas where, in addition to writing mysteries, she enjoys hiking, bird-watching, country dancing--and cruise travel, of course. Continuing research for the Darcy Cavanaugh Mysteries finds Candy wearing sequins, sipping Mojitos and “Chicken Dancing” in shipboard Discos worldwide. Very grueling, but she is dedicated. She is currently at work on Decked Out to Die, set aboard a cruise to Alaska. |
Dressed to Keel: A Darcy Cavanaugh Mystery
Synopsis: Don't ask ER nurse Darcy Cavanaugh why she's climbing the gangway of a cruise ship--she'll mutter something about job burnout, Firefighter Sam, or that unfortunate incident with an R-rated peanut butter sandwich. The Fall Foliage Tour with champagne, melting wedges of Brie and well-stuffed tuxedoes could mean time to re-think her career, get her life together and plant her Jimmy Choos firmly back on the ground. Only trouble is, everything under Darcy's feet is moving, cruising full speed ahead toward disaster. When mini-strokes, jewel theft, and a dubious Halloween suicide point a finger of suspicion at her best friend, Darcy dons a mermaid suit and fights a tidal wave of trouble to defend her; stowing clues in her cleavage, torching socks in the shower and even dangling from a lighthouse cliff. She can handle the flotsam of eccentric suspects and victims: Prom Princess, Yoga Nazi, Queen Bee, Miss Bliss and the Phantom Dancer, but that gorgeous Dance Host, Luke Skyler, makes her dash for a lifejacket---why is the man so blasted baffling? Are his arms a safe berth or leading her to Tango with a killer? When Spa treatments turn deadly, a lifeboat careens overhead and Darcy is threatened with her own sexy lingerie, it looks like she may be next to walk the plank.
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