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Cynthia Blair

Cynthia Blair is the author of nearly 60 published novels. Her work includes contemporary women’s fiction, young adult fiction, and mysteries, written under the pen name Cynthia Baxter.

Blair was born on Long Island, the daughter of a high school English teacher and a painter, quilter, and homemaker. She decided she wanted to be a novelist when she was six years old. Yet she didn’t believe it was possible to make a living as a writer, so she earned an undergraduate degree in Economics and a Masters degree in business.

Blair worked in large corporations for several years before deciding to take a year off to trying writing full-time. She had already had her first novel published and was working on her second. She continued to have her books published and went on to have a lifelong career as a novelist.

In addition to writing fiction, Blair has also written extensively for the Long Island newspaper Newsday and did editing work for Consumer Reports. In addition, she has worked as a travel writer, written restaurant profiles for a Long Island magazine, Distinction, published how-to articles in Writer’s Digest Magazine, and taught writing at Hofstra University on Long Island.

Novels

While attending business school, Blair got an idea for a novel and, in one sitting, wrote the first 40 pages. Almost a year later, while living in New York City and working at her first job, she began submitting the first few chapters of her book and an outline to publishers. After working with two different agents and completing the manuscript, in 1981 the book, entitled Once There Was a Fat Girl, was published by Fawcett Juniper Books. The novel was considered a “crossover” book, one that would appeal to both adults and young adults.

Blair went on to simultaneously write both contemporary women’s fiction, published by Ballantine Books, and Young Adult novels, published by Fawcett. For a period during the late 1980s, her 13-book series about identical twins Christine and Susan Pratt made her Fawcett’s best-selling young adult author.

In 2003, Blair’s first mystery was published under the pen name Cynthia Baxter. The book, Dead Canaries Don’t Sing, became the first in the nine-book Reigning Cats & Dogs Mystery Series, published by Bantam Books. The series features Long Island veterinarian Jessica Popper, whose animal-clinic-on-wheels takes her to various spots around the island, enabling her to solve mysteries.

Blair also wrote two other mystery series. The Murder Packs a Suitcase mysteries (Bantam Books) center around a travel writer who encounters murder while going on travel junkets to glamorous locales she plans to write about. The Lickety Splits Ice Cream Shoppe mysteries (Kensington Books) are set in the Hudson Valley, where the books’ heroine, Kate McKay, owns and operates a gourmet ice cream shop.

Blair’s books have been translated in German, Swedish, and Danish, with special editions published in the United Kingdom.

Bibliography

Written as Cynthia Baxter

Reigning Cats & Dogs Mystery Series (Bantam Books)

Dead Canaries Don’t Sing (2004)

Putting On the Dog (2004)

Lead a Horse to Murder (2005)

Hare Today, Dead Tomorrow (2006)

Right From the Gecko (2007)

Who’s Kitten Who? (2007)

Monkey See, Monkey Die (2008)

Murder Had a Little Lamb (2009)

Crossing the Lion (2010)

Murder Packs a Suitcase Mystery Series (Bantam Books)

Murder Packs a Suitcase (2008)

Too Rich and Too Dead (2009)

Lickety Splits Ice Cream Shoppe Mystery Series (Kensington Books)

Murder with a Cherry on Top (2018)

Hot Fudge Murder (2019)

Last Licks (2020)

Game of Cones (2020)

Written as Cynthia Blair

Contemporary Women’s Fiction (Bantam Books)

Once There Was a Fat Girl (1981)

Lover’s Choice (1981)

Forever Rainbows (1983)

Commitment (1983)

Beautiful Dreamer (1983)

Battle Scars (1983)

Just Married (1984)

All Our Secrets (1985)

The Three of Us (1987)

Summer House (1989)

Close to Home (1990)

Temptation (1993)

Once More With Feeling (1996)

Young Adult Novels

The Pratt Twins Series (Fawcett Juniper)

The Banana Split Affair (1985)

The Hot Fudge Sunday Affair (1985)

Strawberry Summer (1986)

The Pumpkin Principle (1986)

Marshmallow Masquerade (1987)

The Candy Cane Caper (1987)

The Pink Lemonade Charade (1988)

The Double Dip Disguise (1988)

The Popcorn Project (1989)

The Apple Pie Adventure (1989)

The Jelly Bean Scheme (1990)

The Lollipop Plot (1990)

The Coconut Connection (1991)

The Bubble Gum Gang Mystery Series (Fawcett Juniper)

There’s No Such Thing as a Haunted House (1991

Chocolate Is My Middle Name (1992)

Warning: Babysitting May Be Hazardous To Your Health (1993)

What Do Rock Stars Eat for Breakfast? (1993)

Buried Treasure…In My Own Attic? (1994)

Non-Series YA Novels (Fawcett Juniper)

Freedom to Dream (1987)

Starstruck (1987)

Crazy In Love (1988)

Going Solo (1991)

A Summer in Paris (1992)

Molly and the Great American Family (1994)

Alaska Adventure (1995)

Dark Moon Legacy (Harper Collins)

Volume I: The Curse (1993)

Volume II: The Seduction (1993)

Volume III: The Rebellion (1993)