

So she’s willing to welcome undercover detective Colby McBride, hired to help solve the mystery behind her wannabe fiancé’s disappearance. Piper Jane Mackenzie, mayor of Honey Creek, won’t let a major scandal rip her quirky hometown apart, or jeopardize her dream of one day running for higher office. Filled with Jodi’s characteristic warmth, endearing characters, and authentic Texan flair, the town of Honey Creek is about to become your favorite place to visit. She was only the second writer-in-residence to be appointed.From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jodi Thomas, a romantic, heartwarming new romance set in Honey Creek, Texas-a little town nestled in the rolling hills bordering the Brazos River, where family bonds and legends run deep, and friendship and love are always close at hand.

In 2003, Thomas became the writer-in-residence at West Texas A&M University. Several of her novels have appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List or the USAToday Bestseller List. Her novels have been translated into at least six languages. Thomas has been nominated for RITAs several other times. Her third win, for The Texan's Reward, led to her immediate induction into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame. She has won three Romance Writers of America RITA Awards,–the highest award given to romance novelists– in 1992, 1995, and 2006. By 1991, Thomas was able to quit teaching to become a full-time writer. It won a Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award for Best Western Romance and was designated a National Press Women Novel of the Year.

Thomas's first novel, Beneath the Texas Sky, met with critical success. As a compromise, she took her husband's first name as her pen name. When she sold her first book, publishers suggested that her surname, Koumalats, was too ethnic. By 1988, Thomas had begun writing in earnest after work. She also sold many short stories for children, most averaging about 244 words. Her first published work was an article for the Oklahoma Daily about the Llano Cemetery in Amarillo. In 1984, worried that teacher salaries would be insufficient to save for her children's college education, Thomas began writing. Both husband and wife became teachers, and for the next fifteen years Thomas taught family living at Amarillo High School. The couple then returned to Amarillo and had two sons. Thomas married Tom Koumalats and spent several years travelling while he served in the United States Army.

She has a Master's degree in Family Studies. She grew up in Amarillo, Texas and moved to Lubbock to attend Texas Tech University. Jodi Thomas is a fifth-generation Texan, whose grandmother was born in Texas in a covered wagon.
