To Live or Die in Arizona

About the Book

A wholly unexpected medical diagnosis tells Abby Taylor that her life, the somewhat lonely yet satisfying life of a single 40-something professor of Old English at Vassar College, can never be the same. Attractive, well-liked, highly esteemed in her field, Abby has always stood up determinately to the buffets of fate. But now she finds herself running–running both from the past with its personal tragedies and from the disease that threatens her future with failing kidneys and impending dialysis. She runs as the deer from the mountain lion or the elk from the hunter–a blind reaction triggered by the instinct for survival.

However, a person can run just so long and Flagstaff, Arizona, seems to Abby like as good a place as any to lite for the summer. An intriguing man and a darling corgi dog add to the appeal. A great climate, breathtaking scenery, and hardly the crime capital of northern Arizona, as Abby reassures her sister. Or is it? A stolen classic Alfa Romeo, ominous doings in the forest, eco-warriors on the loose, and ultimately the death–or is it the murder?–of a close friend suggest otherwise. From the moment of diagnosis Abby has known that she would have to fight to maintain her sense of self in the face of the major life-changes demanded by her disease, but will she also have to fight for life itself? Will she live or die in Arizona?

About the Author

Elizabeth Bruening Lewis has written three interrelated works of suspense fiction, yet by no means are they all fiction. Fans say that her work should be read both for fast-paced entertainment and for many hard facts it contains. Romance and humor play their part as Abby Taylor, David Neale, and their little corgi dog dodge evil ones and are pursued by murderers. Yet these fictional characters navigate a very real world with threats to the environment, incurable kidney disease, dialysis, and other challenges. Lewis combines a background as varied as the challenges her characters face. She is a journalist, a PhD historian, has taught at the university level, and has been an active volunteer in her community, including her nine years on the board of the Arizona Nature Conservancy. In her writing, Lewis also draws on her own personal experience including hiking much of Arizona, dialysis, and kidney transplant. She has published five books, three fiction and two nonfiction, and has won three national awards. Lewis and her husband of forty-seven years, along with their corgi Terrwyn, divide their time between Phoenix and Prescott. They have two children and four grandchildren.