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Dawn Lee McKenna (October 13, 1963 - September 25, 2021)

It is with unparalleled sadness I must share the news that the beautiful Dawn Lee McKenna has passed peacefully with her family at her side. Those of us who were blessed to have Dawn touch our lives will forever be made better by her gentle honesty, perfect love, and incomparable brilliance. Today we mourn her departure from this world while celebrating the Great Reward she so richly deserves and can now enjoy while we wait to hold her hand and see her smile again when Heaven’s doors open for the rest of us.

Dawn Lee McKenna was a native Floridian who moved to northeastern Tennessee in her thirties. She was the author of 17 novels and was a BingeBooks founding author. May she be at peace.

In the realm of contemporary thriller fiction, Dawn Lee McKenna stands out as a distinctive voice. With the sun-soaked settings of the American South as her backdrop, McKenna paints her tales with rich detail, unforgettable characters, and intricately plotted suspense. But who is Dawn Lee McKenna and what makes her work resonate with so many readers?

This is the most bizarre obituary I've ever seen filed. On August 6,2002, by the Sun Sentinel

McKenna, Dawn "crossed over" 8/3/02(sic) after bravely fighting atough battle with cancer. She was the loving 36(sic) year old daughter of Mrs. Sandra Prisco and Frank Delois. She is survived by her sons, Casey and Sean, many aunts, uncles and cousins and her beloved "chosen family" of many dear friends in the cocoa Beach area. A private memorial service will be held. The family requests that memorial gifts be made to the Educational Fund, established for her sons. Dawn McKenna Memorial Fund, Bank of American 82 N. Atlantic Ave., Cocoa Beach, FL 32931.

Meet Dawn Lee McKenna I don't find myself very interesting, but let's see what I can make up You know, I really enjoy learning more about the authors whose books I read, and I find those people fascinating. But I'm basically pretty bored with myself. If you want interesting, read my books. Interesting people live there and they do funny and courageous and enchanting things. I find them completely disarming. Me, I'm pretty much your basic dweeb. I'd really rather hear about you. But, if you're the kind of reader who likes to know something about an author, then I guess it would be rude not to say anything at all, regardless of how pedestrian I might think I am. I am the divorced Mom of five amazing kids for whom I am exceedingly grateful and with whom I am entirely in love. I live in a small town in Tennessee that's big enough to have a good Japanese restaurant but small enough that you'll see someone you know there. I am a Christian—flawed, flailing and constantly on God's last nerve, but a Christian nonetheless. I am a cancer survivor, but all I did was keep breathing, so I'm uncomfortable when people tell me how awesome that is, like I had some sort of hand in it. I am an unrepentant, unapologetic and irredeemable romantic who is forever falling in love with Literary Dead Guys. They might be characters or they might be the writers who created them. Inman from Cold Mountain. Yeah, one of the great loves of my life. I'm a dork and I know it. I'm exceedingly accident prone. I love to cook. I was the last living human to watch Lost. Yeah, I guess that's pretty much it.

Publication Order of The Forgotten Coast Books

Low Tide 	(2015)	Hardcover Paperback  Kindle

Riptide 	(2015)	Hardcover Paperback  Kindle

What Washes Up 	(2015)	Hardcover Paperback  Kindle

Landfall 	(2015)	Hardcover Paperback  Kindle

Dead Wake 	(2015)	Hardcover Paperback  Kindle

Awash 	(2016)	Hardcover Paperback  Kindle

Apparent Wind 	(2017)	Hardcover Paperback  Kindle

Lake Morality 	(2018)	Hardcover Paperback  Kindle

Squall Line 	(2018)	Hardcover Paperback  Kindle

Overboard 	(2018)	Hardcover Paperback  Kindle

Ebb Tide 	(2019)	Hardcover Paperback  Kindle

Back of the Bayou 	(2019)	Hardcover Paperback  Kindle

Ebb Tide is a prequel to the series.

Publication Order of Still Waters Books with Axel Blackwell

Dead Reckoning 	(2017)	Hardcover Paperback  Kindle

Dead Center 	(2018)	Hardcover Paperback  Kindle

Dead and Gone 	(2019)	Hardcover Paperback  Kindle

Publication Order of Dismal, Florida Books

Black and White 	(2019)	Hardcover Paperback  Kindle

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

See You 	(2014)	Hardcover Paperback  Kindle

Dawn Lee McKenna is a popular American writer of romantic suspense, mystery, crime, thriller, and fiction novels. She is particularly well known for writing the Still Waters series and The Forgotten Coast book series. Her books are popular all around the globe and are known for their excellent cast of characters and unique storylines. Author McKenna was born and brought up in Florida. She relocated to Tennessee during her thirties with her family and has been residing there since then. McKenna likes to write Southern stories. She says that she is not able to shift her focus from writing Southern novels as it has entered his soul. McKenna doesn’t think of letting the touch of the South go from her writing interests. She loves the quirky small towns in the South and the collection of funny, remarkable, and fascinating people living there. McKenna claims that she never gets tired of depicting the South as the central character in all her books. Sometimes, she also likes to describe a quiet love story happening on an Alabama dirt road. She also has interests in semi-noir, atmospheric and darkly funny suspense stories which take place in Apalachicola, Florida.

The other stories that McKenna loves to write in her books include ultimately sweet and wryly funny tales of two outsiders living in Alabama during the 1970s, who go on to take over the world after finding each other. McKenna’s novels have a lot of things in common in spite of being different in many ways. All her books are character-driven revolving around people with a unique personality. They may be damaged, but deeply funny, strong, and look uniquely beautiful due to their flaws. McKenna loves all the characters she has created in her novels. They include a ninety-year-old creole nanny named Miss Evangeline, the honorable and droll Jack Canfield, the dangerously charming and hilariously inappropriate bad guy named Bennet Boudreaux, and the damaged but a strong cop named Maggie Redmond. The authors who influence McKenna the most include Wayne Stinnet, James Lee Burke, Sue Monk Kidd, William Faulkner, T.R. Pearson, and many others.

McKenna’s suspense novels of the Forgotten Coast Florida series have featured on bestselling lists of numerous literary journals. Her standalone Southern fiction book called See You is also highly popular. The Still Waters book series is a spin-off series of the Forgotten Coast series, which McKenna co-wrote with her close friend and novelist Axel Blackwell. Author McKenna is addicted to coffee. She considers herself a wannabe homesteader and a functional and flawed Christian. When McKenna is not busy with her writing projects, she likes to be in the company of her loving husband and her kids, looks after her playful cat, and indulge herself in her favorite pastime activities. All the notes of McKenna for writing her stories come to her mind in the form of dialogues. She loves the way her characters talk in her head constantly.

With whatever dialogues she is able to remember from her imaginations, she tries to create scenes and eventually write a complete novel. McKenna takes all her notes in the longhand form. She has continued this habit from the early days of her writing career. Author McKenna is impressed by the idea of using social media platforms for promoting her books. She is also interested in interacting with the readers on such platforms and answering their queries. The best advice that McKenna has heard when she started her career was to just write and keep writing. She also gives the same advice to the aspiring writers with the addition that even if they don’t believe in their talent, they should believe in their story which will compel them to finish their stories and publish them.

The Still Waters series written by author Dawn Lee McKenna is comprised of a total of 3 books released between 2017 and 2019. This series features the primary characters in the roles of Evan Caldwell, Jake Bellamy, and several others. McKenna has set the stories in a small Florida town called Port St. Joe and has shown Evan Caldwell at the center of each of the three stories. Evan Caldwell is depicted as a lieutenant, who goes to work as an investigator for the office of the local sheriff after experiencing a personal tragedy. The debut novel of this series is entitled ‘Dead Reckoning’. It was released by the Sweet Tea Press in 2017. Initially, it is depicted that Lt. Evan Caldwell is drifting away in life. His wife met with a tragic accident that has left her in a comatose condition for months.

Evan Caldwell has many questions related to the accident, whose answers he is not able to find as the only one to know anything is his wife lying in bed almost dead. Later, Evan puts his wife in the hospital care and relocates to Port St. Joe, where he gets a job with the sheriff’s office as a detective investigator. The hopes of Evan Caldwell for solitude and peace get shattered when he learns about the murder of the current sheriff. To make matters worse, Evan is asked to take up the responsibility of interim sheriff. He investigates the events before the killing of the sheriff and tries to track down the murderer. As the investigation proceeds further, numerous questions keep coming up and make Evan’s job even more difficult. Then, as the answers start to surface, Evan Caldwell gets his hands on some twisted and deep secrets that lead to the murder of the sheriff. He unravels those secrets and finds the culprit, thereby, providing justice to his ex-boss.

The second volume of this suspense series is known as ‘Dead Center’. It was published in 2018 by Sweet Tea Press. This book opens with the discovery of Jake Bellamy’s dead body from the local park. Jake was a beloved father and used to work as an insurance agent. His murder comes as a great shock to everyone, including Evan Caldwell. As Evan takes charge as the new sheriff, he begins the investigation of Jake Bellamy’s murder. Personally, he wants to live a peaceful life on his boat and look after his bedridden wife. But, that doesn’t seem to happen in the near future. As Evan takes the investigation of the murder case deeper, he finds that Jake Bellamy did not have any enemies. What bothers him more is the struggle to establish a motive behind the brutal slaying of innocent Jake. Later, a second murder takes place in the town in a similar fashion and this causes a backlash from the people and the media. In order to make sure that no other innocent person gets killed, Evan Caldwell decides to investigate the case more dedication and determination and make the culprit pay for his brutal crimes.