Jeanine Kitchel

Jeanine Kitchel's love of Mexico led her to the Yucatan in 1983, and in 1997, she left San Francisco for a relaxed lifestyle in Puerto Morelos, a fishing village on the Quintana Roo coast.

TRAVEL WRITER

Kitchel writes about Mexico, the Maya and the Yucatan. She's written for The Miami Herald, El Universal/Mexico City, The News/Mexico City, The Herald/Mexico City, Baja Times, The Mexico Files and Fodor's Travel Guides.

WHERE THE SKY IS BORN

Her first book, a travel memoir, Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, tells how dream became reality when she and her husband left Silicon Valley jobs to pursue their goal of living in Mexico, and how they coped with buying land, building a house and retiring in a foreign country.

MAYA 2012 REVEALED

Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, gives a journalistic view of the 2012 end date debate regarding the Maya calendar phenomenon.

WHEELS UP: A NOVEL OF DRUGS, CARTELS AND SURVIVAL

Kitchel's first novel, Wheels Up, published in May 2018. Once again, Mexico sits center stage. Her Latina protagonist, Layla Navarro, catapults to the top of Mexico's most powerful syndicate when her notorious uncle is recaptured and imprisoned. Layla struggles to survive in one of the cruelest institutions the world has ever seen.

Wheels Up is included in The New York Book Review Fall Issue September 27, 2018, under Independent Press listings and is book 1 in her Yucatán thriller trilogy.

TULUM TAKEDOWN

In book 2 in the Wheels Up trilogy, Layla Navarro's chance encounter with a Mexico City journalist leads her to the Yucatán Peninsula where she helps search for the woman's missing niece. She must navigate through a complex puzzle of underworld obstacles before another innocent victim is lost to the shady world of human trafficking.

Her website--www.jeaninekitchel.com-- has updates on her writing and weekly blog,