* Lakin's contemporary novel, Someone to Blame won the Zondervan First Novel contest at Mount Hermon in April. The novel will be published in August of 2010.

* Lakin's three fantasy novels (The first in the Sacred Sites Collection) have been acquired by AMG/Living Ink publishers. Contract is underway and the first book, The Wolf of Tebron, will be released fall 2010.

* Innocent Little Crimes made the top semifinals of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest in May(top 100 of 5,000). Lakin received a full read by Publisher's Weekly, which gave the book a stunning review: "Revenge is indeed a dish best served cold in this fast-paced, thrilling story . . . a page-turning thrill-ride that will have readers holding their breaths the whole way through."

* Lakin is working on two novels: the fourth in the Sacred Sites fantasy series and a literary mystery entitled Conundrum, centered loosely around the mystery of her father's death to leukemia at age thirty-three.

Lakin grew up in the Big Orange, when there were still orange groves in the Los Angeles basin. Her first novel, A Rip in the Redwood Curtain, was picked up by the first agent who read it, Ben Kamsler -- Elmor Leonard's agent at the time.

Too literary and obtuse, the book never sold and remains under Lakin's mattress. Kamsler, 92, decided it was time to retire, which sent Lakin off to obtain new representation.

While running a bed and breakfast inn, raising two daughters, and breeding dozens of pygmy goats, Lakin pumped out another two novels. Fifteen years later, top New York editors are sitting up and taking notice. Perhaps Lakin was ahead of her time.

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