Suzanne Burke

Award winning author, Suzanne Burke became involved with retired racing greyhounds after adopting her first retired racer, Allie in 2002. She has over fifteen years experience with this breed and has been an active volunteer for one of the nation's well known greyhound adoption groups, Greyhound Adoption League of Texas since 2002.

Her vast knowledge of this breed comes from fostering, ownership, working with lost greyhounds, and rescuing greyhounds in dire circumstances. Suzanne's inspiration for writing Greyhound Stories is based on these experiences. Her hope is to inspire others with her stories and share the lessons she's learned through the eyes of greyhounds.

In 2012, Ms. Burke released her first book, Logan's Secret. Following this, she released Logan and the Mystical Collar in 2013, a magical children's adventure set in Ancient Egypt, which won Gold and Silver medals in the 2015 Global EBook Awards. In 2016, the author released The Rise of the Phoenix, an exciting historical adventure in Medieval Europe, which won three Gold medals in 2016 Global EBook Awards. Read more below about the stories and what inspired her to begin this book series:

In 2000, a loose greyhound sprinted past author, Suzanne Burke as she worked in her front yard garden on Thanksgiving day. She rushed to the back alley to try to capture the lost greyhound and found him staring her down from the other end. She called for the greyhound and he raced to her at lightning speed. The greyhound named Zeus was safely returned to its owner and it was that day she became totally entranced by the greyhound due to its agility, speed and elegance. It wasn't until 2002 that she would adopt her first retired racing greyhound, named Allie, and meet a special greyhound named Logan years later that would inspire her to write his story.

Logan's Secret, Ms. Burke's first book is the true life story of a greyhound that faced challenging and heart wrenching experiences in his quest for a forever home. Written from Logan's perspective, the story gained popularity with adults and children and readers wanted to know more about Logan.

Ms. Burke set out to begin a series of magical children's fiction stories transporting her true life greyhound characters to historical periods where greyhounds held prominence. These stories are well researched and contain history chapters at the end to add interest. The books also include projects for children and a rich vocabulary list of words. She teamed up with Dallas graphic artist Shawn Fernandez to add colorful action illustrations that help guide the stories.

Logan and the Mystical Collar, the second story in the series, sets Logan in Ancient Egypt with some familiar characters like Cleopatra, and a bully greyhound named Zeus who have to solve clues from hieroglyphics that suddenly appear on Logan's collar. Logan and the Mystical Collar won the Gold for Best Illustrated Children's book and Silver for Best Ancient Historical Fiction book in the 2015 Global EBook Awards.

The third book in the series, The Rise of the Phoenix, released in February 2016, is a spell-binding story of Logan, a spunky greyhound named Tess, a misguided staghound named MacGregor, an intelligent wizard, and a feared dragon who must work together to solve the mystery of an evil black mist threatening a kingdom in Medieval Europe. The Rise of the Phoenix won three Gold medals in the 2016 Global EBook Awards. Visit her Facebook page, "Greyhound Stories" and "Logan Greyhound" to learn more.

Today, Ms. Burke lives in Dallas, Texas with three lazy retired greyhound couch potatoes named Amber, Jack, and Perry and in 2015 met and adopted a staghound named Odin who has an uncanny resemblance to the character, MacGregor written in her third book, The Rise of the Phoenix.

A percentage of proceeds for her book sales go to the Greyhound Adoption League of Texas and various greyhound adoption groups around the world. Learn more about greyhounds on her website at www.greyhoundstories.com.