April Star - On the Road to Mystery

It seemed written in the stars that April Star would become a writer. When she was nine months old, she fell out of bed and landed on a metal typewriter. According to the Sebring author, “Writing was embedded in me from an early age.” In elementary school, her love of writing sometimes got her into trouble. In math or geography class, she’d sit in the back writing plays and stories. The teachers would confiscate her notebooks and call her mother. They didn’t have to go far to find Star’s mother – she taught second grade in the same school.

After graduation, Star followed in her mother’s footsteps and became a teacher. But two years later, fate intervened - she married Jerry, a man she met on a blind date. Jerry’s construction job required them to hit the roads of America.  For sixteen years, they traveled in their RV to what Star calls “every where-the-hell-is place on the map.” To pass the time, Star would write about her experiences in journals. Later, she wrote a non-fiction account of her travels based on her journals. Titled Life Through a Rearview Mirror, the book was only distributed to family and friends. These stories would later form the basis for her Wanderlust Mysteries.

Star’s first novel, Tropical Warnings, was two years in the making. At first, she found it difficult to transition from short stories to a novel. “I wound up with more of a mini-novel,” she says. “Then I thought of each chapter as a little short story, and that worked for me.” Tropical Warnings, a romantic mystery set in the Florida Keys, tells the story of Laura Madison, a campground manager facing off against an anonymous stalker while falling in love with David Jennings, the private investigator trying to help her.  Star calls her main characters “composites of my husband and myself, back in our romantic younger days.”

Her next novel, The Last Resort, takes Laura and David to St. Augustine where a bottle washed up on the beach leads them to investigate the mysterious death of a campground owner.  Star enjoyed writing this book because it gave her a chance to delve into forensics, an area she finds particularly interesting.

Star’s third novel, The Dolphin Triangle, is a stand-alone mystery introducing Detective Krista Becker. Inspired by the tragic murder of Adam Walsh, the story has Detective Becker investigating the murders of a ten-year-old boy and a young wife and mother. Her investigation puts her in the croisshairs of a psychotic murderer. The Dolphin Triangle was released as a Kindle e-book.

Star’s biggest challenge is finding the time to write. A self-described “morning person,” she usually gets up between four and five AM and does her writing before leaving for her day job as an RV resort office coordinator.  But busy as she is, she never tires of creating stories that will take readers on the road to mystery.

For more information about April Star, visit her author page at www.amazon.com/April-Star/e/B001K8I6AC