Sharon J. Hamilton

www.sharonjeanhamilton.com

Sharon J Hamilton (1944-) was born in Winnipeg, Canada. She began teaching in a one-room eight grade rural schoolhouse in 1963. Seventeen years later, she took leave from her position as Chair of the English Department at Bruns Collegiate to undertake doctoral studies at London University, England. In 2008 she retired from her position as Associate Executive Vice Chancellor, Associate Dean of the Faculties and Chancellor's Professor of English at Indiana University, Indianapolis and moved to the English Riviera. Inspired by Agatha Christie and P. D. James, she began a new career as a writer of crime fiction. Her novels are intended not only to tell a good tale of murder and mayhem but also to explore the social and psychological aspects of crime.

An unlikely twist of fate involved Hamilton in her own Miss Marple adventure, resulting in the arrest and conviction of a local thief and fraudster. Soon after, in 2015, she moved back to Winnipeg, Canada where she currently resides.

While living in the UK, she completed the Odds Bodkin Mysteries trilogy: Fall of a Sparrow; Chapel on the Moor; and The Doolally Gang.

Intrigued by the legalization of medical assistance in dying (MAID) in 2017 and the controversial actions of the Board of Directors of the St. Boniface Hospital, Hamilton wrote and published Manitoba MAID (2019). This novel tells of the story of a woman born in High Bluff, Manitoba and raised on the Long Plain Reserve near Portage where she attended the Portage Residential School as a day student. The constant clash between her indigenous and English cultures reaches a tense climax when, having lived in a rooming house in Winnipeg for over fifty years, she faces a dreadful diagnosis and imminent, painful death. Accused of having caused the death of her English neighbour and her Indigenous mother/grandmother, and having only recently discovered her English family, she agonizes over how best to live and how best to die.

Hamilton's new novel, Better Dead Than Bred, tells the story of a man who risks everything he values to revenge the theft and death of his beloved shelties, both award-winning show dogs. Please visit the teaser-trailer or the book description or peek into the first three chapters on this website for a taste of this "absorbing thriller with an irresistible hook for animal lovers and pet owners." (Kirkus Reviews)