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Publication Order of Beauty from Ashes Books
Publication Order of Brothers Courageous Books
Publication Order of Builders Books
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Publication Order of The Honeywells of Kentucky Books
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Publication Order of Sadie Cooper Mystery Books
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Publication Order of Standalone Novels
Vanessa Gray Bartal is an American author best known for her novels in the romance genre and a couple of titles in the thriller and mystery fiction categories. Like most good and prolific writers, Gray Bartal has always been a voracious reader from early in her childhood. As it currently stands, she has over 50 novels under her name ranging from free standing coming of age adult titles, young adult books, and thriller mystery series such as The Kings of Montana, The Shadow Realm, Honeywells of Kentucky, and her highly popular Lacy Steel Mystery Books, among many others. Despite being one of the most prolific writers in the genre, she is also an accomplished baker and a full time mother who loves to travel.
Similar to other writers, Vanessa Gray Bartal started out in another career, and turned to full time writing when her novels earned enough for her to quit her day job. Before she got into writing, she used to work as a 911 dispatcher – one of the oddest places you would expect to find a writer. It is important to note that Bartal has trained in communications, which probably explains her penchant for telling stories, and her job in the dispatch office. Vanessa attended the Olivet Nazarene University for two years, after which she transferred her credits to Mount Vernon Nazarene University from which she would later attain her communications degree. While she currently lives in the Ohio countryside, Vanessa asserts that most of her writing is influenced by her time in the big cities. She cites her time at Olivet as being particularly influential in shaping the cultural kaleidoscope and big city themes in her writing.
One of the things that set Vanessa Bartal apart from other writers is the fact that she is for the most part a self-published author. As an author with a family and a job, her writing was her little secret that for a long time only her husband was privy to. Upon quitting her dispatcher job and deciding to become a stay at home mother, Vanessa found that she a lot of energy to work on her writing career. The words just seemed to flow and she would write up to 20,000 words a day. Soon she had about two dozen unpublished manuscripts that she first shared with her friends and family. Despite the overwhelming support from her family and friends, what would follow would be a series of rejections that almost had her quit, that is, until she discovered self-publishing. Vanessa was initially reluctant to self-publish given that she hated the idea of herself as a salesman selling books from the trunk of the car. But when she sold her first novel on the very first day of her self-publishing endeavor, she was instantly hooked. Being an under the radar person, the anonymity of the process and the chance to connect personally with fans who wrote her letters from time to time held much appeal. However, it was not until she released the first of the Lacy Steele Mystery Series, Morning Cup of Murder that her career exploded with the novels attaining top ranks in sales and popularity.
The Lacy Steel Mysteries are one of Vanessa Gray Bartal most popular novels. These novels feature Lacy Steel, an amateur detective that seeks to unravel criminal mysteries and secrets. She frequently finds herself or her close family members the targets of criminals that would do anything to protect themselves from exposure. She published the first novel in the series, Morning Cup of Murder in 2011. The Sadie Cooper series is very similar to the Lacy Steel mysteries both in theme and in characterization. Just like the Lacy Steel Mysteries, these novels feature a female protagonist working to keep her life from falling apart. The chief protagonist Sadie Cooper often finds herself dealing with unresolved romance and family ghosts from the past, and unexplained murder mysteries that are full of danger.
Morning Cup of Murder is one of the most incredible novels ever written by Vanessa Gray Bartal. Lacy Steele has just returned to her hometown after several years of trying to forge her career in the big city yielded nothing but disappointment. Feeling like the biggest failure in the world, she has moved in with her grandmother, a woman who makes the most delicious food guaranteed to make her fat. But she does not make her life any easier when she reconnects with Jason, the former playboy of her alma mater on whom she used to have a huge crash. Jason is now a hotshot cop and does not seem to have any memory of the once curly haired geek from the band named Lacy. For Jason, Lacy is a potential problem, particularly when one of her close associates becomes the primary suspect in a high profile murder case. Lacy will do all that is in her power to clear her name and that of her friend, heal old hurts, and rebuild her life. But the biggest challenge she now confronts is how to prevent herself from falling in love with the gorgeously handsome Jason Cantor.
In Building Blocks of Murder opens with Lacy Steele as the proud new owner of the Stakely Building, a historic pinnacle of her small hometown. She intends to save the building from destruction or degradation. She now has to deal with unscrupulous developers and a displeased mayor that had hatched a plan to tear the building down and put in its place lucrative private ventures. Nonetheless, not having the expertise to deal with such a momentous task as saving a decrepit building is beginning to weigh down Lacy. To add to the confusion, her boyfriend’s brother arrives in town suddenly turning Tosh sullen and standoffish. This drives Lacy into her investigative mode as she tries to unravel a two-decade-old murder mystery in her newly purchased building. Her persistence drives Jason into a rage, as he believes she is putting herself in danger by interfering with a murder investigation that nobody cares about. Cantor may just be right this time given that as soon as Lacy starts making headway, she starts getting a feeling of being watched. Could a killer have been hiding away for twenty years? Will he come out of the shadows to finish off the bothersome Lacy Steele?
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2 Responses to “Vanessa Gray Bartal”
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Any issues with the book list you are seeing? Or is there an author or series we don’t have? Let me know!
Vanessa Gray Bartal is one of my all-time favorite authors! I eagerly look forward to each new release. There are even some that aren’t on this page yet…
Which ones? I had a quick look and I don’t see any upcoming novels by Vanessa that are listed on amazon and not on our list.