Mystery Lovers Corner

Growing up in a small southside Chicago neighborhood, Julie Hyzy survived sixteen years of a Catholic education, emerging from Loyola University with a bachelor's degree in business administration and a love of writing fiction.

Along the way, she flipped burgers and sliced onions at a neighborhood hot dog stand, was a singing waitress at an Ice Cream Parlour, acted in several plays, appeared in a couple of television commercials, and crashed a previously all-male fraternity to become one of the first female brothers in Loyola's Chapter of Delta Sigma Pi.

Julie's won awards for her science-fiction short stories: "Life's Work" published by Pocket Books (Strange New Worlds Volume VII), which won that contest’s Grand Prize; and "Dissident," chosen by a jury led by renowned sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card to appear in the Phobos Anthology, All the Rage This Year.

Julie's first novel, Artistic License, a stand-alone romantic suspense (published by Five Star in 2004) won the Love Is Murder Peoples' Choice Award for Best First Novel in 2004 and for Best Amateur Sleuth in 2005. It was subsequently released in both large print and trade paperback. Her next novel, Deadly Blessings (June 2005), is the first in her mystery series featuring Chicago-based reporter Alex St. James. Deadly Interest, the second in the series is due out in October, 2006.

Next up is a brand-new series. Julie’s currently working on the first book in that series featuring an amateur sleuth who also happens to be the White House Executive Chef. Olivia Paras’ exploits may not be hardboiled (unless, of course, you’re talking about eggs) but she’s more than capable of keeping the President well fed, while she saves his bacon.

A former movie reviewer for a Chicago-area newspaper, Julie is currently the Vice President of the Midwest Chapter of Mystery Writers of America. She’s always juggling several projects at once, but she makes it a point to write at least two pages every single day.