LENORE HART, who also writes as ELISABETH GRAVES, is a fifth-generation Floridian. She grew up in a somewhat haunted house on a lake, near a small citrus-industry town close to Disney World, her first employer. A former wardrobe assistant, theme-park waitress, seafood-joint cashier, graphic artist, advertising copywriter, and forensic librarian, she likes to read the headstone inscriptions in old cemeteries in her spare time. She has published novels, short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. BLACK RIVER (Putnam) first volume in the "Dark Florida" trilogy, was her first novel as Elizabeth Graves. A sequel, DEVIL’S KEY, was released by Northampton House Press. Hart is also the author of WATERWOMAN (Putnam 2002, 2003; NHP new edition 2015) which was a Barnes & Noble Discover book. She also authored ORDINARY SPRINGS (Putnam), THE TREASURE OF SAVAGE ISLAND (Dutton, 2005), T. REX AT SWAN LAKE (Dutton 2006, a picture book co-authored with Lisa Carrier), BECKY: The Life and Loves of Becky Thatcher (St. Martin's Press, 2008, 2009), and THE RAVEN'S BRIDE (St. Martin's Press, 2011, 2012). Her latest work is as editor of THE NIGHT BAZAAR: Eleven Haunting Tales of Forbidden Wishes and Dangerous Desires (NHP, February 1, 2017). Hart has received awards from the Florida Fine Arts Council, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Old Dominion University. She is faculty in the graduate creative writing program at Wilkes University, and also teaches at the Ossabaw Island Writers Retreat and the Norman Mailer Center. She lives on the Eastern Shore of Virginia with her husband, novelist David Poyer.