Harrison Teacher Debuts Young Adult Mystery Novel
Nina Mansfield has taught both English and Drama at Harrison High School where she staged fall plays and produced the annual Spring One-Act Festival of student written work.
This summer she will debut “Swimming Alone,” a young adult mystery novel with a story line based on a murder in a beach community. The publisher is Fire & Ice Young Adult and New Adult Books, an imprint of Melange Books.
In “Swimming Alone” the Sea Side Strangler is on the loose in Beach Point, where 15-year-old Cathy Banks is spending the summer with her aunt (who happens to be mystery writer Roberta McCabe). Although thrilled to be away from her psychotic, divorcing parents, with no cell phone or Internet access, Cathy is positive that her summer is going to be wretched. Just when she begins to make friends, and even finds a crush to drool over, her new friend Lauren vanishes. When a body surfaces in Beach Point Bay, Cathy is forced to face the question: Has the Sea Side Strangler struck again?
Mansfield began her writing career as a playwright. She has written numerous plays, which have been produced throughout United States and in Canada, Australia, England, Ireland, Scotland and Peru. Her short plays have been anthologized in Smith & Kraus’s “The Best Ten-Minute Plays” (of 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2014) and YouthPlays’ Middle Schoolin’ It.
Mansfield will host a Virtual Book Launch on Facebook on August 27th. She will also appear at the Byram Shubert Library in Greenwich, Conn. on Saturday, Sept. 26 as part of Authors Live@Byram at 3 p.m., where she will read from “Swimming Alone.” Books will be available for purchase and refreshments will be served.
