Bio

CJ Lyons has lived most of her life on the edge.

Trained in Pediatric Emergency Medicine, CJ has assisted police and prosecutors with cases involving child abuse, rape, homicide and Munchausen by Proxy. She has worked in numerous trauma centers, on the Navajo reservation, as a crisis counselor, victim advocate, as well as a flight physician for Life Flight and Stat Medevac.

These skills have proved useful during CJ’s adventures both in the US and abroad.

She participated in an archeological expedition in the Outback of Australia sponsored by the Kuku Djugan tribe and was one of few people allowed access to explore the Hell’s Gate Wilderness Preserve in Kenya on foot during an environmental impact survey of the Lake Navisha region.

She has also traveled extensively in the US, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the Caribbean. She holds an orange belt in Kempo and enjoys hiking, white water rafting, and outdoor photography when she is not writing or teaching.

CJ has been a story-teller all her life, always creating stories about people discovering the courage to make a difference. This drove her into writing thrillers centering on strong relationships and led her to coin the term: Thrillers with Heart.

A member of Romance Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, Sisters in Crime, and Novelists Inc, CJ has taught numerous live and online workshops as well as keynote speeches, to audiences across the nation and in Canada, including: MWA, RWA, Romantic Times, Oklahoma Writer Federation, Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and PennWriters among others. She was also the conference chairperson for the highly successful inaugural ITW ThrillerFest.

A finalist for RWA’s prestigious Golden Heart and winner of the Golden Gateway award, CJ has received numerous accolades for her writing.

Her medical suspense novel, LIFELINES, debuted from Berkley March, 2008 and became a national bestseller. Publishers Weekly called LIFELINES a “spot-on debut…a breathtakingly fast-paced medical thriller” and Romantic Times gave it 4 1/2 stars and made it a Top Pick.

LIFELINES received rave reviews from national press including Newsday, the Baltimore Sun, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as well as winning the Love is Murder’s Readers’ Choice Award for Best First Novel and becoming a finalist for the Bookbuyer’s Choice Award, the National Readers’ Choice Award, and the Daphne du Maurier Award.

The second in the Angels of Mercy series, WARNING SIGNS, was released January, 2009, followed by, URGENT CARE in October, 2009. CRITICAL CONDITION, the finale of the Angels quadrilogy will be released December, 2010.

Her short story, “Scutwork”, appeared in FIRST THRILLS, an anthology edited by Lee Child, featuring the best of today’s thriller bestsellers and the future stars of tomorrow.

CJ’s newest project is as co-author with Erin Brockovich creating a new suspense series due out in 2011 from Vanguard Press.

To learn more about CJ and her writing, check out these interviews with her.