false 169992 5 1
JoAnna writes about the shores of Lake Michigan and has been reviewed in Michigan newspapers as a “regional writer.”

Eve writes about Southwest Oklahoma and once won an award for the best book of the year with an Oklahoma setting.

It’s no particular secret that Eve and JoAnna occupy the same body.

Talk about your split personalities!

But how did this happen?

Eve K. Sandstrom is an Oklahoman to the teeth: she was born there, as were five previous generations of her mother’s family. Both her grandfathers and her father were in the oil business, once the backbone of Oklahoma’s economy. One grandmother was born in the Choctaw Nation, and Eve is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Eve and seven other members of her immediate family are graduates of the University of Oklahoma. Eve even knows the second verse of “Boomer Sooner.”

Eve wrote two mystery series: the “Down Home” books, set on a ranch in Southwest Oklahoma, and the Nell Matthews mysteries, semi-hard-boiled books laid in a mid-size city on the Southern Plains.

But Eve married a great guy whose family owned a cottage on the east coast of Lake Michigan, not far from the Michigan towns of Fennville, Saugatuck, and Douglas. Every summer for more than forty years she, her husband and various combinations of children and grandchildren have trekked to the community of Pier Cove for vacations that lasted from two weeks to three months.

The area features gorgeous beaches, lush orchards, thick woods, and beautiful Victorian houses. Eve grew to love it. So when her editor asked her to come up with a new, “cozy” mystery series, Eve set it in a West Michigan resort town, scrambling up Saugatuck, Douglas, South Haven, Holland, Manistee, Ludington and Muskegon with her own ideas of what a resort ought to be to create Warner Pier.

As further background, she plunked her heroine into a business which produces and sells luscious, luxurious, European-style bonbons, truffles and molded chocolates. Most small towns couldn’t support a business like this, but the resorts of West Michigan – with their wealthy “summer people” – can. The “Chocoholic Mysteries” were on their way.

Eve’s editor requested that she use a pen name for the new series, and Eve picked the middle names of her three children, Betsy Jo, Ruth Anna, and John Carl. “JoAnna Carl” was born.

So that’s how JoAnna/Eve became a regional author in two widely separated regions.

JoAnna/Eve earned a degree in journalism at the University of Oklahoma and also studied with Carolyn G. Hart and Jack Bickham in the OU Creative Writing Program. She spent more than twenty-five years in the newspaper business, working as a reporter, editor, and columnist at The Lawton Constitution in Lawton, Oklahoma. She took an early retirement to write fiction full-time.

She and her husband, David F. Sandstrom, have three grandchildren, whom they love introducing to the lore of their two homes – Oklahoma and Michigan.
]]> female 518518 0451205561 9780451205568 39 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175474742m/518518.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175474742s/518518.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/518518.The_Chocolate_Cat_Caper 3.45 220
When a high-profile defense lawyer dies after eating a cat-shaped chocolate laced with cyanide, it's up to Lee to find out who tampered with the recipe-before she and her aunt end up behind not-so-chocolate bars.]]> 169992 3.59 1283 184 2002 583901 0451207475 9780451207470 18 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176010708m/583901.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176010708s/583901.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/583901.The_Chocolate_Bear_Burglary 3.61 174 ]]> 169992 3.59 1283 184 2002 518528 0451209850 9780451209856 18 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175474758m/518528.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175474758s/518528.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/518528.The_Chocolate_Frog_Frame_Up 3.63 161 169992 3.59 1283 184 2003 294402 045121918X 9780451219183 16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173471922m/294402.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173471922s/294402.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/294402.The_Chocolate_Bridal_Bash 3.65 142 169992 3.59 1283 184 2006 518523 0451216350 9780451216359 16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175474745m/518523.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175474745s/518523.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/518523.The_Chocolate_Mouse_Trap 3.68 133 169992 3.59 1283 184 2005 518519 0739449087 9780739449080 16 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175474743m/518519.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175474743s/518519.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/518519.The_Chocolate_Puppy_Puzzle 3.75 126 169992 3.59 1283 184 2004 518522 0451221885 9780451221889 14 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/518522.The_Chocolate_Jewel_Case 3.51 118 169992 3.59 1283 184 2007 2941536 0451225066 9780451225061 24 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2941536.The_Chocolate_Snowman_Murders 3.42 102 The scrumptious—and deadly— hardcover debut of the national bestselling Chocoholic Mysteries.

Lee McKinney Woodyard knows that being in the luxury chocolate business isn’t all sweetness and light, and neither is the holiday season. But she tries to draw the line at cold-blooded murder.

As treasurer of WinterFest, Lee is up to her elbows in the arguments, egos, and last-minute mix-ups that happen behind the scenes. But she’s coping, even when the guest juror of the art show shows up drunk. Lee leaves him to sleep it off, and is stunned the next day when her husband, Joe, discovers someone has put the visiting dignitary into a permanent state of repose...]]> 169992 3.59 1283 184 2008 518520 0451216946 9780451216946 10 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175474745m/518520.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175474745s/518520.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/518520.Crime_de_Cocoa_Three_Chocoholic_Mysteries 3.67 40 #2 The Chocolate Bear Burglary
#3 The Chocolate Frog Frame-Up]]> 169992 3.59 1283 184 2005 6357737 0451227972 9780451227973 4 http://www.goodreads.com/images/books/63/737/6357737-m-1255803804.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/books/63/737/6357737-s-1255803804.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6357737-the-chocolate-cupid-killings 3.56 34 Ninth in the scrumptious—and national bestselling—Chocoholic Mystery series.

TenHuis Chocolade is wall-to- wall with chocolate hearts for Valentine’s Day. But Lee is getting no love from Private Detective Derrick Valentine.

He’s looking for their employee—a woman Lee and her Aunt Nettie have been harboring for an underground railroad-type organization that aids abused women. Luckily, they manage to not spill the cocoa beans and clue him in.

But the situation becomes a complex confection when Valentine meets his end. And it’s Aunt Nettie who becomes a suspect. Lee will have to find a way to free Nettie of guilt without exposing the innocent—and find a killer with a bitter heart that’s definitely not made of chocolate…]]> 169992 3.59 1283 184 2009