For more of Debbie Wiley’s articles and Fresh Fiction reviews, you can visit here. *** Everyone knows I love cozy mysteries, but I also love mysteries and thrillers with a mental health component. After all, my life’s work is devoted to working with children and families grappling with social and emotional needs and mental health is a major aspect of that. COVID-19 brought to the forefront the desperate need for both more mental health services as well as improved accessibility and availability to services in the United States. Hopefully, this need won’t be ignored once “normal” resumes as COVID-19 merely exacerbated a need that already existed. One trend I’ve been thrilled to see in the book publishing industry is increased attention to mental health issues and I’d like to highlight just a few books recently that have included mental health as part of the storyline in some capacity. The Helping Hands series by Annelise Ryan is quickly becoming one of my favorites as it features a social worker as the heroine. In NIGHT SHIFT, it’s only Hildy Schneider’s second official night on her new grant-funded side job riding alongside the local police officers with her canine therapy dog, Roscoe when trouble strikes….

Hi everyone! Yes, I’m back, posting for Fresh Fiction. So honored to be here and talk about Acceptable Risk. The new book was a tough one to write. But while it was hard, it was also fun. Eventually. And enlightening. Every book I write requires tons of research and I think that’s part of why I like writing so much. I get to learn about all kinds of occupations and meet some of the people who work in them. I’ve found that most people are eager to talk about their jobs–especially people in service work. Doctors, EMS workers, police, military, and so on. They’re happy–even passionate–about what they do and want writers to get it right in the books. They’re also a tight-knit community that comes together to support one another even when no one else does. In Acceptable Risk, my heroine, Sarah Denning , is a military journalist for the Army and is someone who often puts herself at risk to get the story. However, it only takes one thing to go wrong in Afghanistan and she finds herself in the hands of terrorists. Gavin Black is the hero in the story and he’s military through and through. He’s…