Growing up in a straight laced Southern family, I was always fascinated with casinos. In my twenties on a summer hiatus from teaching in North Carolina, I drove to California and became a dealer at Caesars in Lake Tahoe. My mother highly disapproved of my working in a casino, "a place so bad it has 'sin' in the middle."
Thankfully the paper from Palm Springs disagreed with my mother. The Desert Sun raved, "As if often the case, the author pulls from real-life experiences to create a worthy piece of fiction. And her own life is a vivid kaleidoscope of adventure. Casino Queen arrives at the perfect time when crime-solving tales that revolve around strong female protagonists aren’t just a luck of a draw. They’re downright successful. (See TV’s
Corinne LaBalme lives in France and loves everything about it… except eating snails. Her articles about European fashion, food and fun destinations have appeared in The New York Times Travel section, Diversion, La Belle France and France Revisited. Her favorite place to write? Any Parisian café with a good croissant connection…
