Starks was born in Boston, Massachusetts, grew up in northern Oklahoma, and now lives in Texas. She earned a chemical engineering bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, from New Orleans’ Tulane University. This was followed by a finance MBA from the University of Chicago in five quarters rather than the usual six, though she did make time to play for a celebrated women's intramural basketball team, the Efficient Mockettes. Working more than a decade for well-known oil companies in engineering, marketing, and finance from refineries to corporate offices prepared her to write about a plot to sabotage oil refineries and the woman who must discover and stop it. Starks has also been published in Amazon Shorts, Mystery Readers Journal, The Dallas Morning News, The Houston Chronicle, The San Antonio Express-News, Sleuth Sayer (MWA-SW newsletter), Natural Gas, and Oil and Gas Journal. She has run three half-marathons, is co-holder of a US patent, and consults on energy economics for a limited number of clients.

L&L Dreamspell Books and Anthologies:

Dreamspell Nightmares - Thriller-Horror Anthology - Featuring "Gumbo Filé" by L A Starks

13 Days - The Pythagoras Conspiracy