Photo by Sal Avocato

Lori Avocato

Lori Avocato has had a sense of humor all her life.

Thus, she decided to drop a career as a nurse—an Air Force nurse—and write fiction. And, here's the rub: She thought it would be easy. Poor, misguided Lori.

After being married to an airline pilot who was rarely home, she became the "football mom," raised her kids pretty much alone (if you ask her, she’ll refute the "pretty much" part), and switched careers to become a published author—all of which took a great deal of humor to get through.

The award-winning author has now sold six comedic mysteries to Avon Books (The Pauline Sokol Mysteries), and nine contemporary romances to various other publishers. Lori lives in New England with her teenagers (heaven help her, the poor thing) and her little dog Spanky, a shih tzu/poodle mix. She’s the president of the Connecticut Chapter of Romance Writers of America, and has served on the Board of Directors for eight years.

Lori is also a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, The Author’s Guild, and The Nathan Hale Chapter of Military Officers. She writes full-time, focusing on her humorous contemporary mystery series in which a burned-out nurse becomes a medical fraud insurance investigator.

Lori believes that in today’s world we all need a great, entertaining read (and humor always helps), a great partner to share life with (and humor always helps!), and the patience to be a good parent (and humor always…wait, no, we need a lot more than humor to be good parents). She has won numerous writing contests throughout her career, been on the Amazon Bestsellers List for suspense and thrillers (same list as Stephen King. He was #1, and Lori was…well, in the triple digits—but the same bestsellers list! That has to account for something!), and she has taught fiction writing. She also writes a daily humor blog on her personal website.