The Odiferous Destiny of Alexander Sparks follows thirteen-year-old Alexander who has an eerie ability: he smells death coming. After his dad dies and his family is forced to move, he must navigate the horror of a new school in a creepy town where his mom has taken a job in a coffin factory. His sniffer lets him know that the Grim Reaper is hunting his family once again. And this time, he vows to stop Death at any cost.

Penny Berman has always been fascinated by ghosts, the afterlife, and those big questions: Why am I here? Where do I end up? An avid reader of anything that pushes the boundaries of conventional thinking and reality, and a huge fan of stories well told, she naturally gravitated toward screenwriting. She studied through the UCLA Extension program as well as with private teachers, co-producing a few low budget horror films. After a move to Colorado, with the added benefit of having young readers at home, she found herself enamored with children’s fiction, where her heart has been firmly lodged ever since.

This is Penny’s debut novel although she has a closeted graveyard of screenplays and a few unpublished picture books to her credit. She is a longstanding member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, a graduate of the Institute of Children’s Literature, and participates in three writing groups and attends as many writing conferences as she can.

Penny lives near Boulder, Colorado with her husband, two ragdoll cats, and her adored Papillion, Gizmo.