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 officer. Vanessa
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 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 detective agency 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