Members' Showcase: May 2008

Mary Montague (Monti) Sikes' Secrets by the Sea now available.

Mystery, suspense, and romance intertwine in Secrets by the Sea, set on the exotic Caribbean island of Antigua. When Dana Sinclair learns of her grandfather’s murder, she heads to the island to find out what happened. But she soon discovers that Edgewater Manor, the dark mansion overlooking the sea, is filled with secrets and no one there is willing to answer her questions. Clifton Wilder, a suspect in the murder, knows more than he will admit, and he wants the house Dana has inherited. For Dana, danger lurks at every turn, and she doesn’t know whom to trust. Can she trust Clifton, a man her grandfather wanted her to meet? Did the old man die because of his search for the Brasher doubloon, a coin worth a small fortune? Who is stalking Dana and why?

Secrets by the Sea, is the third book in Sikes’ Passenger to Paradise series. All the novels are set in glamorous and mysterious locations. She is working now on a fourth book in the series which is set in Trinidad. Hearts Across Forever, set in Jamaica, was the first book in the series.

A travel writer for many years, Sikes is author and artist for a coffee table book, Hotels to Remember. Her travel articles have appeared in the Buffalo News, Miami Herald, Chronicle Telegram, Caribbean Beat, Southern Boating, and many other newspapers and magazines. She is co-author of Published! Now $ell It! written for authors to guide them in promotion and marketing of their published books.

Sikes is also an award-winning artist who maintains a studio/gallery at Petersburg Regional Art Center. She teaches art at West Point Elementary School and for more than a dozen years has written freelance articles for the Newport News Daily Press. She has presented both writing and art workshops for local, state, and national organizations. In April she was a featured speaker at the Public Safety Writers Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Winner of numerous writing and photography awards, Sikes recently received first place in fiction for Eagle Rising in the Virginia Press Women 2008 Communications Contest. She also won a first place award for articles in a special series for “Connecting Past and Present,” “Bridging Past with Present” and “A New Face for West Point.” Sikes’ other first place was for photography in a daily newspaper - feature photo for “Walking in Unison to Cure.”

For more about Sikes’ work, please visit her Web site: www.marymontaguesikes.com. Her books are available at fine bookstores everywhere and from Amazon.com.