Jody Wallace grew up in the South in a very rural area. She went to school a long time because she couldn't find a job and ended up with a Master's Degree in Creative Writing. Her resume includes college English instructor, technical documents editor, market analyst, web designer, and general all around pain in the butt. Ms. Wallace is published in romance fiction under the names Jody Wallace and Ellie Marvel. She has always lived with cats, and they have always been mean.

Website: http://www.jodywallace.com
Twitter: JodyWallace

• jodywallace: I've started habitually thinking about Game of Thrones when I brush my teeth before bed. Not sure why.
• jodywallace: Dear Fast Food: you and I don't get together often, and now I remember why. You treat me bad, man.
• jodywallace: @TrinityFaegen As long as they aren't ceiling catting you at the same time...
• jodywallace: Now the kids are shout-singing the electronic toy tune themselves. Also repeatedly. *twitches*
• jodywallace: Do you know how kids sometimes play the same soundbyte on an electronic toy over and over and over until you feel like rampaging? Yeah.

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• A Cutthroat Business on June 02, 2011
  
  Savannah Martin is working her little Southern Belle fingers to the bone trying to make her first official sale as a realtor. She works for an agency with a number of employees, from hateful power-saleswoman Brenda to her handsome, distinguished boss. Imagine her delight when a customer telephones one Saturday to complain that Brenda hasn't appeared to show him a house he's interested in. Needless to say, Savannah rushes right over to help. Imagine her surprise when he's very attractive. Imagine both their surprises when they discover they already know each other from high school, although they weren't exactly friends. Or from the same side of the proverbial tracks. Imagine their much larger surprise when they discover a dead body inside the house. When Savannah tries to find out how the body ended up there and whether Rafe (the hero) had anything to do with it, she finds out that the mystery goes a lot deeper than anyone--except for the dead person and the killer--would ever have expected. A Cutthroat Business was a fast-paced, entertaining read. I didn't know what it was like to be a realtor, and I enjoyed the worldbuilding side of the story as much as the mystery side. The details felt authentic to me without being boring at all. There was also a heavy dose of romance woven through the plot and a little delicious irony when our heroine kept putting down her own liking for "trashy romance novels" while having some Hollywoodishly swoony reactions to the hero. While the plot didn't ratchet up to a big, tense explosion at the end--the end, in fact, kind of snuck up on me--the conclusion was satisfying anyway and left a believable thread for Savannah and Rafe to continue their relationship, and their amateur PI-ing, in book 2 of the series.