M. M. (Marjorie) DeLuca spent her childhood in the beautiful cathedral city of Durham in North-Eastern England. She attended the University of
London, Goldsmiths College, studied psychology, then became a teacher. She immigrated to Canada and lives in Winnipeg with her husband and two children. There she also studied writing under her mentor, Pulitzer Prize winning author, Carol Shields.
She loves writing for all ages and in many genres—suspense, historical, sci-fi for teens. She's also a screenwriter with several pilot projects in progress.
DeLuca enjoys teaching workshops in Creative Writing and the writing process.
Her latest novel is
The Night Side.
[
My Book, The Movie: The Night Side;
The Page 69 Test: The Night Side;
Writers Read: M.M. DeLuca (January 2024)]
At CrimeReads DeLuca tagged six "gripping stories of psychological suspense that feature young protagonists struggling with the legacy of growing up in the chaos of a toxic family." One title on the list:
The Turnout by Megan Abbott
This sinister Gothic drama digs deep into the seemingly pink and perfect facade of ballet to reveal the gory truth behind it: mangled feet, blackened toenails .jpg)
and injured joints. Darkness also lingers in the lives of Dara and Marie Durant who have been dancers since they can remember. Growing up, they were homeschooled and trained by their glamorous but unstable mother, founder of the Durant School of Dance. After their parents’ death in a tragic accident nearly a dozen years ago, the sisters began running the school together, along with Charlie, Dara’s husband. As the story progresses, the twisted truth about their childhood and adolescence surfaces; memories of parents, constantly at war with each other, of the unrelenting mother who drove them to view pain as their friend, and who forced them to live a sheltered life in which nothing but dance mattered. Who groomed her beautiful and prized student Charlie, then introduced him into Dara and Marie’s sexually-charged adolescent world. As adults, Dara and Marie are still emotional adolescents, shaped by their mother’s twisted legacy. It’s no wonder this fragile façade can’t hold together when a cunning and determined outsider infiltrates their flimsy gingerbread house of a life and threatens to expose the truth and destroy it all.
Read about
the other entries on the list.
The Turnout is among
Lynn Slaughter's five memorable mysteries for performing arts lovers.
--Marshal Zeringue
London, Goldsmiths College, studied psychology, then became a teacher. She immigrated to Canada and lives in Winnipeg with her husband and two children. There she also studied writing under her mentor, Pulitzer Prize winning author, Carol Shields.
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