Susannah Hardy Books In Order

Publication Order of Greek to Me Mystery Books

Susannah Hardy is an American author that writes cozy mysteries with a culinary leaning to them.

+Biography

Susannah Hardy is a pseudonym for Jane Haertel. Jane created Susannah because, at the time she wrote novels like ‘Feta Attraction’, there was some political controversy surrounding her name.

She also thought readers would struggle to pronounce her last name. So she went a few generations into the past and found a grandmother’s name that she could use as a suitable pseudonym for her writing career.

She has yet to generate any complaints, and Susannah Hardy is not the author’s only pen name either.

Susannah is a native of Northern New York State. That is where she spent most of her childhood, though life eventually took her and the family to Connecticut.

A former student of St. Lawrence University, Susannah has been writing since she was in high school. Back then, the author elicited a bit of interest for her work on a comic strip that used biology as its inspiration.

Those years saw Susannah experiment heavily. Her poetry and short stories were not especially impressive and she couldn’t be happier that everything she wrote in those years has since been lost. But the author knows that those years helped her refine her abilities.

The more she wrote, the better she got, the more determined she was to achieve her publishing dreams. Interestingly enough, Susannah Hardy did not get the drive to write seriously until she was much older and after her family had begun to take shape.

Susannah’s love for writing was always heavily attached to her passion for reading. She remembers her favorite aunt reading to her as a child. It ingrained in her a desire for the written word.

But there was a time when Susannah couldn’t imagine writing an actual novel. She saw the act of writing and publishing as something that other people did. Those were special sorts of individuals, the kind that had unique muses in life and had the capacity to collect paragraphs of words and sentences in ways mere mortals like Susannah couldn’t quite fathom.

It took a bit of growing up and maturing for the author to realize that that desire to write and publish novels was always there. She was just too intimidated to take the dream seriously.

Things worked out in the end. Despite her reluctance to actually take publishing seriously, there were moments when Susannah would actually sit down to write. Those moments were rare. But whenever she was overwhelmed by the desire to write, she gave into it, so much so that, by the time the author’s first novel was published, she had plenty of chapters of unfinished manuscripts hidden away.

Susannah was eventually forced to take her writing seriously when she realized that she would regret it if she died without, at the very least, completing one novel. She was fortunate because, at the time, her son was old enough and he didn’t need her as much.

So as he drifted towards his friends, Susannah jumped at the chance to fulfill the dream on which she had been sitting for so long. Her first step involved joining a local writing group, meeting other authors and learning from them.

Susannah believes she was able to finally start walking the journey towards a professional publishing career because she had other people with whom she could take that journey.

She eventually joined the Romance Writers of America and they helped her figure the business side of writing and publishing out. Suffice it to say, Susannah Hardy had all the tools she needed to transition from writing as a hobby to writing as a profession.

It took Susannah years before she finally decided to get her manuscript for ‘Feta Attraction’ published. She initially got lost in her attempts to perfect it. She couldn’t stop trimming and tweaking it.

It took a lot of willpower for Susannah to finally accept that the book might be done and that it might be time to show it to the public. The author was ready to self-publish the manuscript.

But first, she decided to take a few months to experiment with traditional publishing routes. She wasn’t ready to take the book back to the drawing board. It was ready for publication from her perspective and if traditional publishers wouldn’t give her the chance to show her work to readers, she would push forward alone.

To find an agent, Susannah Hardy went to bookstores, skimmed through cozy mysteries and looked for those authors that used the acknowledgment section to thank their agents.

She generated a list of names of professional agents and tried to sell her book to them. The response was lackluster but a series of events brought the author in contact with John Talbot who was the perfect match for Susannah.

She spoke to him and immediately she knew they would get along splendidly. Just a few weeks later, Susannah had a book deal.

Susannah Hardy writes what she loves. She has a passion for cozy mysteries. That is all she ever reads. She loves getting immersed in small communities and getting to know all the quirky residents and she endeavors to reproduce that same experience for readers of her books.

+Feta Attraction

Georgie Nikolopatos has her hands full running a Greek restaurant in New York. Things are always busy, and it doesn’t help Georgie when her husband Spiro goes missing.

Because of all the talk of ghosts and hidden treasure, Spiro went ahead to call the crew of the ‘Ghost Squad’ television show to look for signs of a haunting. Spiro has gone missing before so Georgie isn’t too worried about him.

Instead, she uses the chaos at the restaurant to go boating with a friend. When they encounter the body of a rival restaurant owner, the police get involved, and now they are asking questions; questions that make Georgie look guilty.

She has no choice but to take matters into her own hands, find her missing husband and catch a killer.

+Oliver and Let Die

Georgie is living in a soap opera. She doesn’t want the drama but she cannot avoid it. She’s in the process of separating from her husband who has come out of the closet, this as her romance with Captain Jack Conway takes an interesting turn.

The appearance of her estranged mother, a famous soap star, only makes things worse. Georgie isn’t even that shocked when a relative turns up dead. With the police sniffing around the family business, Georgie must put her sleuthing hat on once again.

One Response to “Susannah Hardy”

1. Kim: 3 years ago

   Hello!

   I’m really enjoying my first read of Greek To Me series. I’m reading A Killer Kebab.
   My husband grew up in the North Country and his children, now grown, still live there. In fact, his daughter does the weather for Watertown Channel 7 . It’s fun reading about the familiar places. We stay in Sackets Harbor each year when we visit the family. I’ve learned quite a bit from those visits about the area so that makes reading these more fun. Although from what I’ve read so far it’s a great read even if I didn’t know the area. Thanks for the great books!

   Kim
   Kimberly Camp-Hall

   Reply