This novel was eight years in the making after starting life as an award-winning short story but Joyce felt like she had to grow both as a writer and as a student of human psychology before she could do it justice. She described parting ways with her first agent and switching to a small publisher as well as tips to increase pre-orders and suggestions for turning a novel to a possible screenplay.

Joyce was born in the SE Bronx, escaped to Manhattan as a teenager and now lives in Seattle with her husband and son. Along the way to becoming a full-time author, Joyce has worked as a screenwriter, singer-songwriter, multimedia performance artist and most recently, a member of the world music vocal ensemble, Abráce.

Joyce is a Pushcart nominee, whose stories and poems have been widely published. Her first Jo Epstein mystery, Ask the Dead was selected by The Poisoned Pen as a Recommended First Novel and hailed as "Bronx noir". The second book in the series, The Last Matryoshka was praised by Library Journal and takes place in Brooklyn and Moscow. Ms. Yarrow co-authored her third book, Rivers Run Back (Vitasta 2015), with Indian writer Arindam Roy and it was launched at The American Center (US Embassy) in New Delhi.

Ms. Yarrow considers the setting of her books to be characters in their own right and teaches workshops on "The Place of Place in Mystery Writing."

To learn more about Joyce, click here.