I’m a  (susanjkraus58@gmail.com) therapist, mediator, travel writer and, most recently, novelist. My two novels, "Fall From Grace" and "All God's Children," books 1 & 2 of a character-driven psychological mystery series set in Kansas, are available on Amazon as trade paperbacks and Kindle.  Kirkus reviews for "Fall From Grace" read: "In her debut novel, Kraus, a therapist and mediator, brings acute psychological observation to her storytelling…multi-layered characters… A thoughtful, balanced novel, and a great mix of courtroom drama and psychological thrills." For "All God's Children":  "A fast-paced, involving family drama that tackles a headline-grabbing religious sect… a tremendous talent for making the most unsympathetic characters three-dimensional… Grace (is) a compelling fictional creation."

I take the adage “Write what you know” to heart, and I’m serious about research. Not the “read it in a book,” but the hands-on, messy, going-outside-my-comfort-zone kind of research. Like spending all night watching homicide autopsies in the bowels of an inner-city morgue so I could write the most authentic autopsy scene ever. Or going to church services at the funeral-picketing, gay-bashing Westboro Baptist Church and interviewing current and past members for “All God’s Children.” When I put a character on the witness stand, it comes from my own experience of being grilled in court.

My books tackle provocative social and political issues, and my protagonist, Grace McDonald, is unconventional: a mother helping her daughter raise a son with Asperger’s, a mediator and therapist who finds herself short on patience and understanding, a woman who is skeptical of ‘woo-woo’ at the same time she relies on the oft-dismissed women’s intuition to solve crimes and conundrums. While there are mystery and psychological thriller elements, these are not genre. Book Group Discussion Questions are in each book (dozens of them) and will leave groups arguing for weeks. I’m happy to do phone chats or Skype with groups reading the books.