THURLO, AIMEE SALCEDO On the morning of February 28, 2014 Aimee passed away peacefully at home after a brief struggle with cancer and related complications. She was attended by her husband of 43 years, David. Aimee was 62 years old. Aimee, the youngest of two daughters born to Armando and Silvia Salcedo, was born on June 1st, 1951 in Havana, Cuba.

At the age of seven, Aimee and her older sister Silvia fled the Castro regime with their parents and settled in Miami, Florida. Her mother died soon thereafter. After her father, an electrical engineer, remarried, Aimee became a boarder and student at Ursuline Academy in Arcadia, Missouri. Her quarters were just down the hall from a curtain that separated the young women from a cloistered area. This was an environment that would prove valuable to her future career as a published author. Aimee graduated from high school in 1969 after transferring to Ursuline Academy in New Orleans.

She entered LSU New Orleans as a freshman, but, hampered by life-threatening asthma, was forced to seek a less stressful environment. She transferred to the University of Albuquerque (now St. Pius X High School) in 1970. After a few months, she moved in with a roommate near the University of New Mexico campus and her friend introduced her to David Thurlo, their next door neighbor. It was love at first sight, and after only a month, Aimee and David were married. Aimee left college and worked as a bookkeeper at a hardware store, then Clover Club Foods, while David completed his degree. Never one to back down on a challenge, Aimee got the Clover Club job on a bluff and taught herself to use an adding machine by practicing on a drawing of the key configuration.

When David graduated Aimee obtained her American citizenship and decided she wanted a career of her own. After unsuccessful attempts working as a receptionist at an employment agency then an optometrist's assistant, Aimee was inspired to write. She sat down with legal pad and pencil and began writing a romantic intrigue novel. She soon discovered David, now a teacher at APS, looking over her shoulder. With her permission he jumped in and began editing her work. After the book was completed, Aimee sent out a proposal, which was quickly rejected. Again it was Aimee's refusal to admit defeat that led to her success. 60 rejections later an offer came from a New York editor and the first book was sold. With David's editorial support, Aimee worked up two new books proposals, and with a track record now, they found a new publisher.

The next book that Aimee wrote and David edited made a national bestseller list. From that moment on, the two partners were never without a book contract. Led by Aimee, who usually wrote the first draft of each new project, the couple discovered that they could write with one voice, and their combined efforts resulted in books characterized by the unique stamp that defined their partnership in life and work. Aimee was the lead author writing the first two drafts on all those novels where her name appears alone or first on the cover.

These are the vast majority of the duo's works over the next thirty years. In addition to many romantic suspense novels, including 36 for Harlequin, the Thurlos have written three successful mystery series, each featuring a very different primary investigator. In the Sister Agatha series, the `cozy' mysteries are solved by an extern nun - which reflect back to Aimee's years as a student and boarder at Ursuline Academy. The Lee Nez series, which David wrote and Aimee edited, featured a partnership between a New Mexico state policeman who happens to be half-vampire, and a Hispanic woman FBI agent.

Their flagship series of 17 hardcover Ella Clah police procedurals, ending with a November, 2013 title, Ghost Medicine, was set on the Navajo Reservation where David grew up. Ella Clah is a Special Investigator for the Navajo Police Department. With these novels, the Thurlos were more equal partners, relying on their complimentary strengths. The Ella Clah series was optioned by CBS Productions, but, alas, Ella Clah did not make it to network television. Aimee and her husband's books have been read by millions of readers, and their novels have been translated and sold worldwide in more than 18 countries. Their work has been widely praised by reviewers and critics and have received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Among Aimee's many accolades are the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award, a Willa Cather Award for Contemporary Fiction, and the New Mexico Book Award for Mystery and Suspense. She and her husband have also made Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Borders national bestseller lists.

Their Lee Nez half-vampire series was optioned by a Hollywood production company as a feature film prospect. Just a few months prior to her death, Aimee and her partner completed the final volume in their Harlequin Intrigue Copper Canyon series, Eagle's Last Stand. and began revising Looking into Darkness. This is the second hardcover romantic suspense novel in their new trading post series destined for publication in 2015. Aimee's dedication and drive were so strong, even when confined to bed, that she and David worked on laptops side by side for over a month until she had to put it aside, rest, and allow her husband to take notes to finish the revisions.

Mrs. Thurlo's works will live on, however. Four books already completed will be published in the next two years, including the above, plus Undercover Warrior and the second story in the Charlie Henry series, ironically named Grave Consequences, which David wrote and Aimee edited. Aimee's life was not all work. She was an enthusiastic animal lover and, over the years she kept a bull snake, mice, many domestic rats (including two rescues) and two horses, one of them a BLM mustang.

Aimee took dressage and hunter jumper training from a Corrales trainer and rode for many years along the ditch banks, bosque, and her own arena. Though she suffered from asthma, she found and raised two American Staffordshire Terriers, Clouseau and Chloe, an injured puppy at the shelter about to be put down. Chloe watched over Aimee for thirteen years. Aimee also found a German shepherd-cross puppy living under a tumbleweed near the FAA radar facility, and despite her wheezing, kept the animal. Marcy lived ten more years and was the most loyal dog anyone could imagine.

At one time Aimee owned five dogs, mostly poodles adopted from the Roswell Humane Society, her favorite charity. Just a week prior to her death, her latest rescue, a large standard poodle named Gabriel from South Carolina, succumbed to stomach cancer. Aimee and her office companion were inseparable. The dog was by her side until the day before he died. Her two remaining poodles, Marlowe and Ella, now keep David company. Aimee was driven by her need to prove her worth and make her contribution to society, but she was very outgoing in public and made easy connections with those she met. She will be missed not only by those who knew her, but by the millions who fell in love with the characters in her books. Aimee Salcedo Thurlo was preceded in death by her mother Silvia Berndes Salcedo, father Armando Salcedo, and sister Silvia Salcedo Rodriguez. Aimee is survived by her beloved husband, David. A private remembrance will be held for close friends and family. For her many friends and readers, condolences and personal comments may be made on Facebook or through the website at www.aimeeanddavidthurlo.com

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