C. L. Giles

C.L. Giles has always been an avid reader, but it had never occurred to her that she might enjoy writing. While teaching in a middle school gifted program, she assigned a creative writing project and assured her students that she would not ask them to complete an assignment she had not attempted herself. So, when she entered a short story contest and won first prize, she was hooked, and the rest is history.

A single word or phrase can inspire C.L. to write a story; other times, she gets ideas from articles and documentaries, requiring more research. Since mystery and suspense books are not a genre that she reads for entertainment, C.L. was shocked when scary stories tumbled out of her imagination for her own books.

C.L. believes that characters make a great book and that they need to be people you care about deeply: relatable protagonists as honest-to-goodness flawed humans who struggle to be the everyday heroes we all wish to be. C.L. hopes that her young readers will be transported to a world that will entertain them, touch them, and possibly introduce them to concepts that will make them think beyond the obvious, the trite, and the status quo.

When she isn’t writing stories of mystery and suspense for young adults, C.L. enjoys any outdoor activity either as a participant or spectator, reading, and eating out (except during a pandemic). She is a retired teacher and lives in Clarksville, Tennessee. A Reason to Forget: Training Games is her debut novel, the first in her Firestorm series.