Casey, Donis

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Casey, Donis

PERSONAL: Born in Tulsa, OK; married. Education: University of Tulsa, B.A.; Oklahoma University, M.L.S.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Poisoned Pen Press, 6962 E. 1st Ave., Ste. 103, Scottsdale, AZ 85251. E-mail—me@doniscasey.com.

CAREER: Teacher; academic librarian at University of Oklahoma and Arizona State University, Tempe; owner of Tempe gift shop for more than a decade, beginning 1988; full-time writer.

WRITINGS:

The Old Buzzard Had It Coming (novel), Poisoned Pen Press (Scottsdale, AZ), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: Donis Casey became a full-time writer after many years as an academic librarian and businesswomen. She left academia in 1988 and became the owner of a Scottish gift shop in Tempe, Arizona. More than a decade later, she wrote her first novel, The Old Buzzard Had It Coming.

The story is set in Oklahoma, where Casey was born, and the protagonist, Alafair Tucker, is the matriarch of a large family that includes her husband, Shaw, and nine children. The year is 1912. Alafair's seventeen-year-old daughter, Phoebe, is in love with John Lee Day, who lives with his abusive father, Harley, and his mother on a neighboring farm. When John's father is found dead, Alafair helps his widow prepare the body, and in doing so discovers a gunshot wound. Alafair contemplates whether young John ended his own torment by killing his father, and worse, whether her sweet Phoebe was an accomplice in the crime.

A Publishers Weekly contributor felt that "the appealing homey world Casey creates rings true. With so much going for her, readers will be right pleased to see a sequel." A reviewer for MyShelf.com called Casey's debut "a very real, down to earth, wrenching to the core, story about a way of life that is no more."