Linnea Sinclair (1954, New Jersey, United States) is an award winning writer of Science Fiction Romance, Fantasy Romance and Paranormal Romance. Sinclair's Gabriel's Ghost was the winner of the 2006 RITA Award in the Best Paranormal Romance category. She has used the pseudonym Megan Sybil Baker. A former news reporter and retired private detective, she resides in Naples, Florida (winters) and Columbus, Ohio (summers) with her husband Robert Bernadino and their two cats.
Linnea Sinclair was born in New Jersey, USA. She studied journalism and criminology at Indiana University Bloomington (1972-1975) and Florida State University.
Sinclair is a former investigative news reporter and private investigator in the Central Florida area who has written for many private investigative journals. She owned Island Investigations.
She has stated to have been writing ever since she could wrap her fingers around a Crayon. Her first professional sale was the Fantasy romance Wintertide in 1999 to LTDBooks. Since 2004 she has been published by Bantam Books. Her agent is Kristin Nelson from Nelson Literary Agency. She is a frequent guest speaker at conferences and workshops for writers.
Sinclair's website proclaims her as a 'Science Fiction Romance author'. Nevertheless, she has written Fantasy Romance and Paranormal Romance as well. She has stated to like the term "Space Opera", and her books Finders Keepers and Destiny's Game have indeed been called so. She sometimes writes with a good sense of humor, and her books Finders Keepers and An Accidental Goddess have been called "funny". In a review of Gabriel's Ghost, Vicky Burkholder has wrote that 'Linnea blends science fiction, romance, world building and the paranormal'.
Creative process
Sinclair has said to always start with a "what if" involving a male and female protagonist, and to 'wrap the world, the setting' around that story. She has also said that her books unfold in her head much like a movie, in that she starts writing at page one and just keeps going.
Writer and PI
Sinclair blends her experience as a private investigator into her work. The male protagonist in her novel The Down Home Zombie Blues is a homicide detective in a Florida city. Various of her short stories are based on a psychic investigator (also abbreviated as PI).
While she was still a practicing PI and publishing with LTDBooks, she used the pen name Megan Sybil Baker. According to her website she didn't think her clients would approve the person who was keeping their secrets as a private investigator was also publishing fiction. The pseudonym Baker she created for herself when she was about ten years old.
Furzels and cats
Sinclair's novel Games of Command and the short story Of Cats, Uh, Furzels and Kings feature telepathic feline creatures called 'Furzel's. Sinclair has stated that these are inspired by her two cats Daiquiri (aka Daq) and Miss Doozy.
2007 P.E.A.R.L. Award, for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Romance
The Down Home Zombie Blues (November 2007, Bantam Books)
2007 P.E.A.R.L. Honorable Mention, for Best Futuristic Romance
2008 winner of Romantic Times 2008 Reviewers' Choice Award Winners for Futuristic/Fantasy Romance
Edited together with J.C. Wilder:
Dream Quest, Nine Spellbinding Paranormal Romances (January 2003, LTDBooks), including the short story "To Call the Moons" by Sinclair (as Megan Sybil Baker).
Short stories
Most of these stories the author has put up on her Yahoo Group, not for distribution.
"To Dance With Death" (1988, unpublished)
"Gambit" (2000)
Silent Run (2001), set in the same universe as Finders Keepers
"How I Spent My Summer Vacation"
First place in Futures Magazine Short story contest
