Joan Candler

Joanie Candler published her first novel, The Lost Mission of Santa Isabel, in December 2014 after spending ten years interviewing Baja California’s personalities and collecting information on Baja history. Along the way she drove ten thousand miles from Tijuana to Cabo San Lucas, built a home in Baja, sold her marketing company in Boston, MA, and ushered a granddaughter through high school.

The Lost Mission of Santa Isabel had been the subject of folklore and intrigue for two centuries. According to legend, the Jesuits secretly buried a treasure called Santa Isabel shortly before they were banished to Spain in 1768. Among the early explorers who pursued the treasure were Erle Stanler Gardner, Nellie Cashman, and Doug and Ginger Lamb.

The Lost Mission of Santa Isabel is a mystery about MJ Steele’s search for a link between the death of her husband Rick Delgado and the Lost Mission of Santa Isabel. MJ soon discovers secrets from Rick’s past including a life insurance policy and hidden cash, encounters a curandera, visits a centenarian, and puts her life in danger in her quest to find the mission.

Joanie earned degrees in Marketing, Finance, and Architectural Design from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, moved to Boston, and established a marketing firm. She was one of the first women to be inducted into Rotary International. While at UMass she authored a biography on the Beaux Arts architect Alfredo Taylor, famous for his stick and shingle style homes and natural stone public buildings. Her biography was instrumental in the State of Connecticut’s decision to award him their first Historical Theme Designation.

When not writing her second novel about the black pearl industry that dominated the Sea of Cortez over four centuries, she collects Mexican publications and memorabilia. Joanie is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and the Cape Cod Writers Association. A native New Englander she divides her time between Baja California and Cape Cod, Massachusetts.