Cheryl Peyton

Cheryl Peyton was born and raised in Chicago. As a child, she first developed an interest in writing from her mother, a graduate of Medill School of Journalism, who worked as an editor of Young Adult Fiction. At bedtime, instead of fairytales, Cheryl's mother would read book galleys to her, analyzing the writing style by asking questions like, "How would your friends' conversation differ from this dialogue? What interests you about the story? Which characters are the most interesting to you and why? By the time Cheryl was six years old, she knew it was important to avoid the passive tense and adverbs.

After graduating from college, Cheryl found employment with the Illinois Department of Public Aid as a caseworker on Chicago's south side. After several years, she continued her education art at the Art Institute of Chicago and was hired as an interior designer at a custom drapery shop and, later at a furniture store, on Chicago's North Shore.

Her third career was working as a paralegal for a sole practitioner. Assisting in court, she became acquainted with rules of evidence and courtroom procedures, while honing her writing skills as she worked on legal briefs.

Her series of murder mysteries features Alex Trotter, a nosy female tour operator turned amateur detective who escorts small groups on excursions around the world. Unfortunately, for her clients, these trips become ill-fated when murder intrudes on the itinerary.

Ms. Peyton has also written a thriller that centers on the theft of a nuclear warhead from a weapons convoy out of Y-12 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a biography of a young woman who contracted polio as a toddler prior to the Salk vaccine, a compilation of imagined conversations with her dog, and an informative and uplifting journey of her year-long treatment of breast cancer.

Ms. Peyton now lives near Knoxville, in Loudon, Tennessee with her husband Jim and their Havanese dog, Cody.