Deborah Coonts
Author of Wanna Get Lucky?
About the Author
Deborah Coonts is the author of the Lucky O'Toole Las Vegas Adventures published by Forge Books. (Bowker Author Biography)
Image credit: Deborah Coonts at Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, AZ.
Series
Works by Deborah Coonts
The Complete Lucky O'Toole Novella Collection (The Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Series) (2018) 2 copies, 1 review
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Southern Methodist University
- Awards and honors
- NYT Notable Crime Novel for 2010, Double RITA™ Finalist: Best Frist Novel and Best Novel with a Strong Romantic Element
- Short biography
- My mother tells me I was born a long time ago, but I'm not so sure--my mother can't be trusted. I do know that I was raised in Texas on barbeque, Mexican food and beer. I currently live in Las Vegas where family and friends tell me I can't get into too much trouble. Silly people. I have owned my own business, been a tax lawyer and a flight instructor, and have survived a teenager. And now, I make stuff up for a living.
I write a mystery series set in Las Vegas--funny, sexy and romantic. I've been told they are comedic thrillers--sounds like an oxymoron to me, but you get the drift. The first in the series, WANNA GET LUCKY?, came out May 2010. There are currently five books in the series, LUCKY CATCH being the latest, and three between-the-books novellas. - Nationality
- USA
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
Deep Water by Deborah Coonts is a fast-paced thriller about oil and the economic and political intrigue that go with it. And the power and danger that controlling it – or trying to control it – can bestow. This is the first book in her new Sam Donovan Mystery series, and I hope there are many more books just like this one.
The story takes off at breakneck speed, introducing a lot of people, a lot of locations – and a lot of action. You have to pay very close attention to who’s who and show more what’s what. But it’s well worth it. This author is a favorite of mine, and I’ve learned from reading her other stories, especially the suspense, that every character, every word, has meaning and it will all come together in the end. So put on your thinking cap and get ready for a wild ride.
The story is very contemporary and appropriate in today’s political climate. It doesn’t pull any punches. It’s intense. Everyone is playing a dangerous game and some will die. The suspense builds and builds and is almost unbearable at times. You’ll want to peek ahead, but don’t. The story has a little bit of everything: flying, oil, relationships, politics, the news media, danger, secrets, betrayal. It’s a big story with big personalities, big actions, and big consequences.
Even the romance is intense, which is fitting. Light and fluffy wouldn’t be appropriate, and it would be annoying. The wording and actions can be rough, but it’s intentional and accurate for real life. The cast of characters is large but compelling. You want to know them better.
This book was a pleasure to read. The plot is solid and the writing is excellent. The phrasing is nearly perfect, whether we are on the oil rig, flying, in danger, or having a romantic moment. The language and allegory are strong and descriptive, almost poetic at times. Once I picked this book up I couldn’t put it down. I received an ARC for an honest review. I highly recommend you start the Sam Donovan series with Deep Water. You’ll soon be anxiously waiting for book #2 just like I am. show less
The story takes off at breakneck speed, introducing a lot of people, a lot of locations – and a lot of action. You have to pay very close attention to who’s who and show more what’s what. But it’s well worth it. This author is a favorite of mine, and I’ve learned from reading her other stories, especially the suspense, that every character, every word, has meaning and it will all come together in the end. So put on your thinking cap and get ready for a wild ride.
The story is very contemporary and appropriate in today’s political climate. It doesn’t pull any punches. It’s intense. Everyone is playing a dangerous game and some will die. The suspense builds and builds and is almost unbearable at times. You’ll want to peek ahead, but don’t. The story has a little bit of everything: flying, oil, relationships, politics, the news media, danger, secrets, betrayal. It’s a big story with big personalities, big actions, and big consequences.
Even the romance is intense, which is fitting. Light and fluffy wouldn’t be appropriate, and it would be annoying. The wording and actions can be rough, but it’s intentional and accurate for real life. The cast of characters is large but compelling. You want to know them better.
This book was a pleasure to read. The plot is solid and the writing is excellent. The phrasing is nearly perfect, whether we are on the oil rig, flying, in danger, or having a romantic moment. The language and allegory are strong and descriptive, almost poetic at times. Once I picked this book up I couldn’t put it down. I received an ARC for an honest review. I highly recommend you start the Sam Donovan series with Deep Water. You’ll soon be anxiously waiting for book #2 just like I am. show less
After Me by Deborah Coonts is non-stop suspense from beginning to end. Kate Sawyer is a former NYPD undercover cop, living in Portland, Oregon in the Witness Protection Program and undergoing experimental stem-cell treatment for a genetic case of early-onset Alzheimer’s. She knows she was badly injured badly in an operation that went terribly wrong, but that is about all she knows. She comes home one night to find a dead man in her bathtub, and a note that says I know what you’ve done. show more What has she done?
You can never quite get your footing in After Me, because Kate can’t get hers. You see everything through her perspective, and it is in turn sad and funny and hopeful and frustrating and scary. With no memory all she has are her feelings, but can she trust them? What about the people who say they care for her? Do they? She believes she’s done a bad thing and that she is therefore a bad person. Kate uses her phone as her lifeline, recording events and facts so she can learn them again every day. And she writes the things she so desperately does not want to lose on her body with a Sharpie. Kate’s world seems so small and heart-breakingly bleak and hopeless. But as the danger increases, we begin to see a toughness in Kate, a determination to find out who she is and what she has done, and some hope. The medical treatments seem to be working, but her memories are shadowy, and she isn’t even sure they are all her own memories.
After Me is relentlessly paced. Because Kate’s memories are so small you see how much of life is shaped by what we remember, and that makes everything feel small and close and very unsettling. The action just won’t stop; you are constantly anxious about what will happen to Kate next, and if the people she has come to trust and care about are friend or foe. Did she do something terribly wrong, or is she the victim here?
I highly recommend After Me. It’s an excellent story that I did not want to end. I’m looking forward to a sequel, another story like this from Deborah Coonts – or this would make a great motion picture.
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. show less
You can never quite get your footing in After Me, because Kate can’t get hers. You see everything through her perspective, and it is in turn sad and funny and hopeful and frustrating and scary. With no memory all she has are her feelings, but can she trust them? What about the people who say they care for her? Do they? She believes she’s done a bad thing and that she is therefore a bad person. Kate uses her phone as her lifeline, recording events and facts so she can learn them again every day. And she writes the things she so desperately does not want to lose on her body with a Sharpie. Kate’s world seems so small and heart-breakingly bleak and hopeless. But as the danger increases, we begin to see a toughness in Kate, a determination to find out who she is and what she has done, and some hope. The medical treatments seem to be working, but her memories are shadowy, and she isn’t even sure they are all her own memories.
After Me is relentlessly paced. Because Kate’s memories are so small you see how much of life is shaped by what we remember, and that makes everything feel small and close and very unsettling. The action just won’t stop; you are constantly anxious about what will happen to Kate next, and if the people she has come to trust and care about are friend or foe. Did she do something terribly wrong, or is she the victim here?
I highly recommend After Me. It’s an excellent story that I did not want to end. I’m looking forward to a sequel, another story like this from Deborah Coonts – or this would make a great motion picture.
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. show less
Coonts surprised me in this book by delivering far more than I expected. While the some of the biographical details of Lucky O'Toole were reminiscent of characters found in other books (and other media) Coonts has made the character very much her own. Although O'Toole is provided with many (in book) motivations for solving the murder that crime is seldom the central focus of the reader's attention. Coonts delivers a convincing portrait of what life is like for the staff of a major casino in show more modern day Las Vegas from fielding the requests/demands of celebrities, to dealing with the drunk customers and the remnants of the "old" mob-affiliated Vegas. O'Toole's job, and the people she encounters as she does, would make a worthwhile read even without the murder.
Coonts also deals quite fairly with the reading audience. While everything a reader needs to know to solve the crime is laid before them the entertainment value of all the other aspects of O'Toole's life is used to distract the reader.
The book was enjoyable enough to make this reader want to go back and read the first book in the series and to look forward to the next when it is published. show less
Coonts also deals quite fairly with the reading audience. While everything a reader needs to know to solve the crime is laid before them the entertainment value of all the other aspects of O'Toole's life is used to distract the reader.
The book was enjoyable enough to make this reader want to go back and read the first book in the series and to look forward to the next when it is published. show less
Sophia Otero Stone has lived most of her life putting her dreams to one side to raise her children, support her husband, and now, to care for her aging mother. Those dreams center around making wine, and she has been growing grapes--excellent grapes, grapes developed from her own father's varietals in the Italian village of Friuli. But her husband Daniel died five years ago, and she's been working for Butchy Pinkman, a new-money guy in Napa Valley. His ambitions extend mainly to making a show more successful, popular, cheap table wine, Pink's Passion. And it is successful and popular. It's just not the wine Sophia wants to be making.
But Daniel had always refused to buy their home, insisting renting was a better deal. And land values have risen dramatically in the few years since his death, with the new money moving in. Sophia's home and land--with her grandfather's grapes--has been sold, and she's gotten thirty days' notice.
She's going to lose everything she cares about if she can't find a way out in thirty days.
There's not much time, and the buyers are ruthless. And Sophia doesn't have many allies, and the ones she has don't have any greater resources than she does.
Coonts does a marvelous job of taking this situation and ramping up the tension while keeping the characters and the situations real. When Sophia hears that the new guy in her life, fellow/rival winemaker Nico Treviani, has apparently betrayed a vital secret to those after her land and grapes, she listens to his side of the story! Just like the intelligent, reasonable person she's supposed to be!
Sophia, Nico, her daughter Dani and son Trey, and Nico's nieces Brooklyn and Taryn, are all interesting and complicated and real. Even the bad guys are believably, humanly bad.
Recommended.
I received a free electronic galley of this book from the author. show less
But Daniel had always refused to buy their home, insisting renting was a better deal. And land values have risen dramatically in the few years since his death, with the new money moving in. Sophia's home and land--with her grandfather's grapes--has been sold, and she's gotten thirty days' notice.
She's going to lose everything she cares about if she can't find a way out in thirty days.
There's not much time, and the buyers are ruthless. And Sophia doesn't have many allies, and the ones she has don't have any greater resources than she does.
Coonts does a marvelous job of taking this situation and ramping up the tension while keeping the characters and the situations real. When Sophia hears that the new guy in her life, fellow/rival winemaker Nico Treviani, has apparently betrayed a vital secret to those after her land and grapes, she listens to his side of the story! Just like the intelligent, reasonable person she's supposed to be!
Sophia, Nico, her daughter Dani and son Trey, and Nico's nieces Brooklyn and Taryn, are all interesting and complicated and real. Even the bad guys are believably, humanly bad.
Recommended.
I received a free electronic galley of this book from the author. show less
Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 26
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 799
- Popularity
- #31,914
- Rating
- 3.6
- Reviews
- 69
- ISBNs
- 141
