I write dead people…no, really

I’m a writing geek with one foot in the real world and the other in the make-believe.

It all started with Mary Poppins and Perri the Squirrel — when I discovered out that I could keep the books I bought from the Scholastic sale. Shortly thereafter, I picked up a #2 pencil and haven’t stopped writing. (The #2 pencil eventually morphed into an iBook, then to an iMac and MacBook.)

My first love was always the supernatural. Tolkien and Bram Stoker still figure prominently in my library, except now they nestle side-by-side with Charlaine Harris, Jim Butcher, Nancy Holder, Jeff Mariotte, Charles deLint, Naomi Novik and many more modern-day paranormal authors.

The baby me read way above my grade level, quickly graduating to so-called adult reading… no, not that — get your mind out of the gutter! (okay, that came later). Fairy tales and myths were soon joined by Nancy Drew (the ones with the yellow and blue covers), Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan of the Apes (the Ballantine pb editions) and Doc Savage.

As the years passed, my love for reading grew, my love for writing grew even stronger. In 2004, my first published fiction appeared in Chesapeake Crimes, a short story entitled The Butler Didn’t Do It. The story was nominated for an Agatha Award for best short story.

The following year, my first full-length novel appeared. Matters of the Blood was published by a small press and unfortunately, too soon fell out of print. The good news, the book was picked up by Juno Books, an imprint of Wildside Press and debuted (again!) March 2007.

In 2009, the series rebirthed again, as Juno became an imprint of Pocket Books. The books have been released as follows:

August 25, 2009: Matters of the Blood (Book 1; reprint)
September 29, 2009: Blood Bargain (Book 2; reprint)
October 27, 2009: Blood Kin (Book 3)
October 26, 2010: Blood Heat (Book 4)

The Official Version

Sometime before the Revolution, Maria Lima was born in Matanzas, Cuba, to a family of voracious readers and would-be writers. After her family emigrated to the United States, Maria discovered the magic of books. She started writing her own stories and has been at it ever since. Her writing turned corporate as she used her journalism degree and cranked out marketing copy, feature stories and book reviews. The fiction muse kept calling and in the spring of 2005, was finally fed as Maria’s first published short story, “The Butler Didn’t Do It” was published in Chesapeake Crimes I and garnered an Agatha Award nomination for Best Short Story. Maria spends most of her days working as a Senior Web Project Manager in the DC area. Her evenings and weekends are spent writing.