Hello and welcome!

I write twisty, character-driven mysteries and thrillers about complicated women, dangerous secrets, and the choices they make that change everything.

I’ve wanted to be a mystery writer ever since the fifth grade when I penned my first novel, The Fearless Five. It wasn’t until I’d reached almost the end of the story that I realized there were only four main characters.

How did I solve that? I had the brilliant idea to have a blackout. When the lights came back on, voila, there were suddenly five characters.

Fast forward several decades through marriage, divorce, graduate school, marriage and motherhood, and I’m back pursuing my childhood love of reading and writing mysteries and thrillers. I hope you’ll enjoy them.

I have a jail mystery series starring perhaps the first — or only — Greek American amateur sleuth, Charlotte Papadopolous who has a habit of finding trouble and dead bodies.

Like my character, I have a PhD in Victorian literature and taught women at the San Francisco County Jail for many years. Unlike Charlotte, I never ran across a dead body.

Under C.B. Peterson, I write domestic thrillers. This is the slight grittier side of my writing.

And finally, I have a new historical thriller series with my good friend and fellow Victorianist, Victoria Olsen. Check out Some Dark Force, the first in a series starring an unlikely, brave band of women detectives.

I also write short fiction which has appeared in Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, Kings River Life Magazine, Larceny & Last Chances anthology, and Rock and a Hard Place (Volume 15.

I live in Alameda with my family and an ever-growing collection of animals who wander into the backyard and take up permanent residence.