Susan Berliner has been a nonfiction writer for nearly her entire career. She had originally planned to be an elementary school teacher, but left after a year to become a newspaper reporter for Fairchild Publications. She covered men's retailing for Daily News Record, a men's wear/textile trade newspaper, which was the "brother" paper of Women's Wear Daily.
After Susan's children were born, she switched to freelance writing—mainly in education—publishing book series dealing with editing skills, language arts, and standardized testing. She also created teachers' guides, student activity sheets, and test passages. During this time, Susan was the project editor for a national science magazine for elementary school students and edited subject-related manuscripts for children in grades 7 and 8. In addition, she freelanced as a local reporter, covering board meetings for the North County News, a weekly newspaper in Yorktown Heights, New York.
When she returned to work full-time, Susan became the promotion manager for the Yorktown PennySaver, a job she held for 20 years. She created many original weekly contests including Phony Ad, Rhyme Time, and PennySaver Prophet.
Peachwood Lake is Susan's second novel. She is also the author of DUST, a supernatural thriller. Susan lives with her husband, Larry, in Yorktown Heights, where she is writing her fifth novel. Her website is www.susanberliner.com
On a quiet summer day, 13-year-old Kady Gonzalez sees an armored silver fish leap high in Peachwood Lake. She thinks it's an awesome sight—until, a few minutes later, Kady watches in horror as the same jumping fish savagely attacks a neighbor in his rowboat. That's the start of the malevolent fish's war on the pristine Connecticut lake.
As the casualties mount, Kady, an aspiring writer, is befriended by Monique, a sassy young newspaper reporter. In addition to covering the fish story, Monique counsels the motherless girl on the frightening problems of growing up, especially how to deal with the hurtful taunts of Hannah, a popular classmate.
While the mysterious fish continues to attack anyone venturing into the water, town officials desperately attempt to destroy the demonic creature. Will they succeed without having to sacrifice Peachwood Lake—and will "Fraidy Kady" succeed in conquering her own personal demons?
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While unloading groceries in her Rock Haven condo, Karen McKay notices a strange swirl of red, green, and blue dust. The swirl follows her inside, lifts a porcelain ballerina from her wall unit, twirls it in the air, and throws it to the floor, shattering it into pieces. The following evening, Karen hears her neighbor's dog barking loudly. Upon investigation, she finds her neighbor, Marion, at the bottom of the stairs?dead. At the top of the stairs, a colorful whirlpool of dust circles ominously. Now the feisty librarian must consider the unthinkable: Could the dust be responsible for her neighbor's death and, if so, would it kill again? Karen turns to her ex-husband, Jerry, for help and together they bravely confront the mysterious dust. But will their daring actions cost them their lives?
Dust