USA Today and Amazon #1 Bestseller M. L. “Matt” Buchman started writing on a flight from Japan to ride his bicycle across the Australian
Outback. Just part of a solo around-the-world trip he calls his "Mid-life Crisis on Wheels" that ultimately launched his
writing career. Yeah, it really happened that way.

From the very beginning, his powerful female heroines insisted on putting character first, then a great adventure. He’s since written over 75 action-adventure thrillers and military romantic suspense novels. And just for the fun of it: 200+ short stories, and a fast-growing pile of read-by-author audiobooks.

PW declares of his Miranda Chase action-adventure thrillers that: “Tom Clancy fans open to a strong female lead will clamor for more.” Of his military romantic suspense Booklist says: 3x “Top 10 of the Year.”  Further:
“Like Robert Ludlum and Nora Roberts had a book baby.” His
fans say: “I want more now…of everything.” That his characters are even more insistent than his fans is a hoot.

As a 30-year project manager with a geophysics degree who has designed and built houses, flown and jumped out of planes, and solo-sailed a 50’
ketch, he is awed by what is possible. More at: www.mlbuchman.com.

The pounding in the back of the deli echoed the pounding in Anne’s head. Retired gods and goddesses weren’t supposed to get colds, but this one had certainly slammed their household. She and Joshua had finally closed up the deli and retreated to their upstairs apartment, because there were limits after all—even if she was the one who always had to set them.

But tomorrow was Rosh Hashanah and a Jewish deli couldn’t be closed the day before the Jewish New Year.

She rubbed at her aching forehead, surprised as always not to find her crown there. She hadn’t worn the thing in over two millennia, and
still she missed it. There were times she wished she’d kept it, but it had been much more satisfying to heave it in Zeus’ face when she’d dumped his sorry behind. After all, it wasn’t being married to him that had made her the Mother Goddess Hera; that had been by
divine right from Mom and Dad. Well, Mom anyway. Dad had been something of a jerk as well. 

This story is part of M. L. Buchman's Deities Anonymous series of stories and novels primarily following the Devil's attempts to avert the next apocalypse, often launched by the Software that Runs the Universe having a fit of ennui. Michelle has been cleaning up after God for 14 billion years and is no longer amused at being the "second" power in all creation.