HARD LANDING is Lynne's debut novel. It is the first in a series of thrillers she plans for her lead character, Alex Shanahan, to take place in and around the business she knows well -- airlines. She spent fourteen years working for American Airlines, one of the world's largest carriers. She spent the last two years assigned, as Alex is in HARD LANDING, to Boston's Logan International Airport.

Lynne was born and raised in Dallas, Texas and has the uncommon distinction, at least for an author, of having been a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. What was that all about? "Anyone," she says, "who grew up in Texas knows the importance of football to every household in the state. Ours was no different. My parents were big Cowboys fans and started taking me to games when I was three. When I was nineteen, I tried out for the squad and made it. I spent one year in the vinyl boots, saw lots of great football from the best seat in the house, and even performed at the Super Bowl."

Post-cheerleader, she earned undergraduate and graduate degrees, both in business, from Southern Methodist University, and took her first job working as a financial analyst for American Airlines. "But I wanted to go to the field," she says. "I wanted to work in an airport and see a real airplane and talk to real passengers. Back in our cubicles in headquarters, we could just as easily have been working for a ball bearing factory as an airline."

She eventually found her way to Memphis, Tennessee, a small airport with only seven flights a day, but lots of interesting employees. "It was my first experience with a union, my first exposure to actual passengers, and my first time meeting anyone who had dated Elvis Presley. One of my ticket agents had dated him years before." Lynne's last assignment with American was as the general manager for the operation at Logan Airport.

After American she moved to Seattle to join a small engineering consulting firm. It was at that time that she began taking creative writing classes. Why? "My life after American Airlines had a different rhythm. I didn't wear a beeper. I had more time for myself. I decided to try something creative. What I found out was how fascinated people who don't work in the business are by airlines. That gave me the idea for the series." How did she make the transition from business manager to writer? "My company relocated from Seattle to California and I didn't want to go. They offered me a good severance package, which amounted to a long stretch of paid time off. I took it and used that time to see if I could write a book. I wrote HARD LANDING and I sold it." Was it that easy? "It took longer to write the book than my severance lasted. I was always on the edge financially. When I ran out of cash, I worked on freelance consulting jobs and lived on a credit card. I had to learn all about publishing, a business I knew nothing about. It wasn't easy and it wasn't quick, but I always felt whatever investment I had to make was worth it, because I loved to write so much and I was investing in a career I really wanted. I loved the airline business, too-I grew to love it -- but it was one of many industries I could have landed in. I happened to end up there. Now I have the best of both worlds-I get to experience the airline business through my stories, but I don't have to suffer the aggravation of actually working in it."

In August 1999, three and a half years after she had written the first words, Lynne sold HARD LANDING to a division of Penguin Putnam, to Little, Brown in the U.K., and to Arnoldo Mondadori Editore SpA in Italy. The second book in the series, TARMAC, was published in February 2002 and takes place in Miami where Alex finds herself immersed in the black market for bogus aircraft parts. It was also published in the UK. Editions in Italy and the Czech Republic are also planned.

Today Lynne is working on the third novel in the series, which is scheduled to be published in the second half of 2003. She's back in Boston where she moved to be closer to her family, and still grateful, she says, every day. "I'm grateful for whatever it was that gave me the notion to take writing classes, and most especially for that little engineering firm in Seattle that decided to move to California. It was the best thing that ever happened to me."