About Author

Sally Berneathy

Sally Berneathy
  • Genre:

    Mystery
  • Country: United States
  • Books: 14
  • Profession: Writer
  • Born: 4 February
  • Member Since: Mar 2017
  • Profile Views: 46,211
  • Followers: 139
  • VISIT AUTHOR: Website, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Amazon,
BIOGRAPHY

“Write what you know,” they said. I’d been married three times. I wrote romances.
Fast forward ten years.
“Write what you know,” they said. I’d been divorced three times and fantasized about murdering my ex. Only massive doses of chocolate kept my finger off the trigger.
Now I write about murder and chocolate.

Sally Berneathy's Books

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Book
Spies, Lies and Chocolate Pies (Death by Chocolate Book 8)
$4.99 kindleeBook, Paperback,
Spies, Lies and Chocolate Pies (Death by Chocolate Book 8)by Sally BerneathyPublish: Apr 15, 2022Mystery
The Ex Who Hid a Deadly Past (Charley's Ghost Book 5)
$3.99 kindleeBook, Paperback,
The Ex Who Hid a Deadly Past (Charley's Ghost Book 5)by Sally BerneathyPublish: Jun 11, 2020Series: Charley's GhostMystery
The Ex Who Wouldn't Die (Charley's Ghost Book 1)
$0.99 kindleeBook, Paperback, Audio,
The Ex Who Wouldn't Die (Charley's Ghost Book 1)by Sally BerneathyPublish: Apr 17, 2012Series: Charley's GhostMystery
$3.99 kindleeBook, Paperback, Audio,
Guns, Wives and Chocolate (Death by Chocolate Book 7)by Sally BerneathyPublish: Oct 25, 2018Series: Death by ChocolateMystery
The Great Chocolate Scam (Death by Chocolate Book 3)
$3.99 kindleeBook, Paperback, Audio,
The Great Chocolate Scam (Death by Chocolate Book 3)by Sally BerneathyPublish: Nov 26, 2012Series: Death by ChocolateMystery
Triple Chocolate Murder: Books 1, 2, & 3 Death by Chocolate series
$6.99 kindleeBook,
Triple Chocolate Murder: Books 1, 2, & 3 Death by Chocolate seriesby Sally BerneathyPublish: Dec 17, 2016Mystery
Murder, Lies and Chocolate (Death by Chocolate Book 2)
$2.99 kindleeBook, Paperback, Audio,
Murder, Lies and Chocolate (Death by Chocolate Book 2)by Sally BerneathyPublish: Jul 28, 2012Series: Death by ChocolateMystery
The Ex Who Conned a Psychic: Charley's Ghost, Book 3
$3.99 kindleeBook, Paperback,
The Ex Who Conned a Psychic: Charley's Ghost, Book 3by Sally BerneathyPublish: May 09, 2014Series: Charley's GhostMystery Supernatural Suspense
Death by Chocolate
(1) Free kindleeBook, Paperback, Audio,
#1 Best SellerDeath by Chocolateby Sally BerneathyPublish: Feb 01, 2011Series: Death by ChocolateSuspense Mystery
Chocolate Mousse Attack (Death by Chocolate Book 4)
$3.99 kindleeBook, Paperback, Audio,
Chocolate Mousse Attack (Death by Chocolate Book 4)by Sally BerneathyPublish: Oct 15, 2013Series: Death by ChocolateSuspense Mystery
Fatal Chocolate Obsession (Death by Chocolate Book 5)
$3.99 kindleeBook, Paperback, Audio,
Fatal Chocolate Obsession (Death by Chocolate Book 5)by Sally BerneathyPublish: Nov 07, 2014Series: Death by ChocolateSuspense Mystery
The Ex Who Saw a Ghost (Charley's Ghost Book 4)
$3.99 kindleeBook, Paperback,
The Ex Who Saw a Ghost (Charley's Ghost Book 4)by Sally BerneathyPublish: Mar 14, 2016Series: Charley's GhostMystery Supernatural Suspense
The Ex Who Glowed in the Dark (Charley's Ghost Book 2)
$3.99 kindleeBook, Paperback,
The Ex Who Glowed in the Dark (Charley's Ghost Book 2)by Sally BerneathyPublish: May 16, 2013Series: Charley's GhostMystery Supernatural Suspense
Deadly Chocolate Addiction (Death by Chocolate Book 6)
$3.99 kindleeBook,
Deadly Chocolate Addiction (Death by Chocolate Book 6)by Sally BerneathyPublish: Feb 28, 2017Series: Death by ChocolateMystery

Sally Berneathy's Series in Order

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Sally Berneathy Interview On 30, Aug 2017

"Our astonishing mystery writer Sally Berneathy have so much to share about herself and her life. She grew up in McAlester, a small town in southeastern Oklahoma with all possible provided support from her family. She herself has some interesting marriage stories which inspired her for life. Almost all the characters of her stories are somewhere inspired by real life. A positive attitude woman collecting inspiration from everyone she meets can contribute to your motivation a lot. One often overlooked a piece of advice she has to offer is that give the readers whats keeps them interested and curious for what happens next."
Tell us a little bit about your childhood and background. Who was your favourite teacher in school?

I grew up in McAlester, a small town in southeastern Oklahoma, population 12,000. I had a lot of amazing teachers. If I had to choose a favorite, it would be my first grade teacher, Mrs. Hunter, who taught me to read and write. My mother, father, aunt, and uncle read books to me from the time I was born, and I couldn’t wait to learn how to perform this miracle. I came home from school every day and tried to teach what I’d learned to my two year old sister. To my amazement, she wasn’t interested.

What is one really eye-opening thing that you've learnt from your three marriages? Do you think you would get married again if you met someone?

The biggest thing I’ve learned from being married three times is that you don’t really know someone until you’re married to him! My third even admitted, “If you’d known what I’m really like, you wouldn’t have married me.” Duh! I have met someone. I’ve been with the same wonderful man for fourteen years. We’ve been living together for the past two years. But I’ll never marry him. I have a reputation to uphold...an older woman living in sin with a younger man.

Are a lot of your characters inspired by real life? Or do you like to make it all up in your head?

Many of my characters are inspired by real life people, but by the time my imagination remakes them, they’re not recognizable. An example is Fred in my Death by Chocolate series. His character began with a friend I went to high school with. I’ve known him since junior high, but one day I realized I didn’t know a lot about him. What if he had a secret life none of us knew about? What if... And Fred emerged. Readers keep asking when they’re going to learn Fred’s secrets. As soon as I do! Then there’s the jerk who bumped into my 2 month old car at a stop light and threw a tantrum when I got out to see if there was any damage. I didn’t see any, but I wrote down his license plate just in case. He went ballistic. Ripped the card with his license plate number out of my hand and tore it up. Screamed and yelled and cursed. A good Samaritan stopped to ask if I needed help. He phoned the police. The jerk told the police I backed my brand new car into his 1987 SUV. The officer knew he was nuts. He asked if I wanted to press charges for the assault. I declined. I had better plans for the jerk. I tracked down his name, address, employer, etc. I put him in a book, shot him in the knee, kicked him in that knee, then sent him to prison for the rest of his life. A friend asked if I wasn’t worried he’d sue me since I used his real name. I laughed and said, “Oh, you think that idiot can read?”

One thing that no one would guess when they first meet you is...?

I come across immediately as a loud-mouthed, ditzy red-head, so nobody is surprised to find that I write books about killing off ex-husbands or that I ride a motorcycle or that, as a child, I used to jump off the barn in my efforts to fly or that I live in sin with a younger man. Probably the only thing no one would guess when they first meet me...or even after knowing me for years!...is that I’m a member of Mensa. An egg-head. A closet nerd.

How do you find the recipes for the chocolate desserts in your books? Have you tried all of them?

I have tried all of them. It’s a tough job, but it has to be done! I use my friends for tasters. They claim I’m to blame for the last ten pounds they’ve gained! Better them than me! I get recipes from several sources. As a life-long chocoholic, I have a lot of books of recipes. Friends give me recipes. Facebook friends post chocolate recipes on my page. And sometimes I invent recipes, such as Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake. I have since discovered that Cheesecake Factory has come out with their version. I think mine’s better.

Exactly when did you start writing? Have you always loved writing or was it something that developed during your later years?

I grew up pre-television. We lived in a small rural town where our favorite entertainment on summer evenings was to sit outside under the stars and tell stories. When I went to bed at night, instead of a lullaby, I got a story. That could be because everybody in my family sings like a bullfrog with laryngitis, but they sure could tell stories. I listened in awe as my mother, father, aunt and uncle told stories. I was in the third grade when I decided to go from oral stories to written. We had to do book reports, take a living, breathing book and tear it down to bare bones then analyze the skeleton. I hated that. So I decided to write my own story. My teacher gave me an A and read my work to the class. They listened in awe, and suddenly I had become the storyteller. I was in awe of their awe. I took a lot of literature classes in college because I love reading, but I didn’t like writing papers. Fortunately my professors would usually let me do something creative instead of a boring paper. Edgar Allan Poe is one of my favorite writers, but the idea of comparing and contrasting symbolism, allegory, and imagery in two of his short stories made me shudder. Instead I wrote The Case of Budweiser, a parody of The Cask of Amontillado. Although Poe doesn’t seem to be a humorous type guy, I like to believe he would have laughed had he read my work. I took journalism and writing classes and won awards in both fields, published short stories and poetry in college and literary magazines, then sold a few “true confession” stories to magazines. That was another turning point. Somebody paid me money for my stories. What if I could make a living telling stories and entertaining others the way my family had entertained me on those long-ago summer evenings? In 1988 I decided the time had come to write a best-selling novel. The only question was what I should write about. I elected to follow the admonition, “Write what you know.” I’d been married three times. Surely that qualified me to write a romance. After selling fifteen romance novels, I left the world of writing in 2001 and went to work as a computer programmer for a decade. As soon as I could, I returned to writing. By that time I’d been through my third divorce and realized I didn’t know anything about romance, so I switched to writing about murder and chocolate. “Write what you know.” Not that I knew a lot about murder from personal experience, but I had fantasized about it many times during that last marriage. Had it not been for my fear that Gil Grissom of CSI would catch me, I might have been a widow instead of a divorcee. I know about chocolate from personal experience. At one time I wanted to open a chocolate shop featuring my favorite recipes. The Death by Chocolate Series was born.

Who is your favourite person in the world and why?

I have thought and thought about this question, and I can’t answer it. I know and have known too many amazing people, starting with my mother, father, aunt and uncle who raised me. The ex’s mother also makes that list. She was an incredible person. I told her I thought the hospital had switched babies on her, and somewhere a crazy woman was raising her perfectly normal son. And then there are all my amazing friends, starting with Paula who’s been my friend since first grade. My friends saved me from the abusive marriage to the ex. One day I was thinking about some of my friends and how lucky I was to have such wonderful people for friends. And I had an epiphany. If all those wonderful people liked me, I must be a decent person in spite of what the Maxhole kept telling me! I was finally able to plan my escape. I have hundreds of favorite people, including that young guy I’m shacking up with.

What is your writing routine? Do you have a specific place or time where you think you write better?

I wake around 7:00 then lie in bed for a while letting my freshly awakened brain roam where it will and figure out what will happen next in the book-in-progress. That time seems to be optimum for creativity. Then I get up, exercise for a couple of hours, have breakfast, and begin writing. I have an office with a wall of windows. I hate being confined. Before I moved two years ago, my office was in a sunroom on the second floor, up among the treetops. I loved writing there.

Have you ever been stopped on the street by a fan? What was the experience like?

Not yet, but I’m still hoping! I do have a funny story about a fan who didn’t believe I wrote my book! We were introduced by a mutual friend at a conference in Oklahoma City shortly after my first Silhouette, a dark suspense, came out. The new lady began to talk about a wonderful book she’d read. My book. I thought she did it to be polite, that she knew I wrote the book. I smiled and thanked her for the praise. She laughed and said, “No way you wrote that book! The woman who wrote that book is dark and demented!” She and I are now friends, and I tell that story often!

What gave you the idea for the Charley's Ghost series? Do you believe in the supernatural?

I do believe in the supernatural. I’ve had a few experiences with those on the other side. There is, of course, a story about the idea for the Charley’s Ghost series. With a writer, there’s always a story! In 2011 the e-book phenomenon was just getting underway. I decided to try it out. I thought I knew about publishing. I’d written for Harlequin/Silhouette, Berkley, and a few other smaller publishers. I put Death by Chocolate up on Amazon and waited for the world to find it. Turns out I knew as much about self-publishing as I knew about romance. So the first book sat there selling a few copies but doing nothing spectacular. So maybe people didn’t want to read about chocolate and murder. Maybe I should start a new series about a different subject. “Write what you know.” I sat at my desk, thinking. I knew about computer programming and selling real estate and riding motorcycles and a bit about the practice of law. None of that sounded like the makings of a book. My phone rang. My ex. After ten years, he was still stalking me. I looked at my phone and thought, “He’s never going to leave me alone. And he’s never going to die. And even if he did die, his ghost would come back and haunt me.” The Ex Who Wouldn’t Die features a motorcycle-riding heroine whose husband is killed in the middle of a prolonged divorce. His ghost returns and claims the divorce was never finalized so they’re still married.

What is the best thing you ever spent money on as a writer?

My first computer in 1987. It was an IBM with a dual floppy drive. Suddenly I didn’t have to retype everything I wrote every time I revised it! I revise a lot and always want a clean copy. I went from short stories to books! I’m not sure I could ever have finished a book without a computer.

If you could travel back in time and give 20-year-old you some advice, what would it be?

Don’t get married, buy Microsoft stock in 1986, and start writing books much earlier in life.

How do you keep your stories interesting and from getting repetitive?

I don’t want to tell the same story over and over. I have to find new stories to keep myself entertained and interested in writing them. A publisher once asked me to “write another Title Deleted” because it did so well. Uh...I already wrote that book! I want to write something entirely different!

Which of your characters do you relate most to and why?

Lindsay (Death by Chocolate) and I have a lot in common. So do Amanda (The Ex Who Wouldn’t Die) and I. Lindsay and I share a love of chocolate and driving too fast, but Lindsay is a very nice person, a pushover. Amanda and I share a love of motorcycles and guns. Amanda is tougher than Lindsay. I have to be careful she doesn’t get too sarcastic...a tendency I have in real life!

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