At the ripe-old age of five, I wrote my first book. Entitled “The Sun,” this work of literary genius contained such awe-inspiring passages as, “The sun is yellow.” It was a ground-breaking success among the Kindergarten of Roadrunner Elementary. On the heals of this success, I went on to write absolutely nothing for many, many years.
One sweltering summer, my mother, in what can now be easily identified as a desperate ploy to keep her five children occupied for a few hours during the never-ending summer break, implemented a summer writing challenge. That summer's efforts produced the first ten pages of “The Mystery of the Broken Unicorn”--my first experience with a plot idea that simply didn't work.
Several years after earning a bachelors degree in social science research, marrying my wonderful, if rather tall, husband and the birth of our second child, I took up my pen once more. Mercifully, I did not revisit the unicorn story but ventured into the world of Historical Romance.
A true romantic at heart, though I forcefully deny the charge, I harbor a true weakness for the Regency era in English history. Between world war on a scale unheard of until that time, the political upheaval at home, a changing economy, the rise of industrialism and the burgeoning belief in the importance of romantic love, the early 19th Century has a little of everything.
My first novel, The Ramshackle Knight, was published in May of 2007 and met with rave reviews from my mother and closest relatives. Spurred on by the unbiased acclaim, I wrote eight more Regency romances before being picked up by Covenant Communications.
Courting Miss Lancaster was released in 2010, followed by The Kiss of a Stranger (a re-publication of The Ramshackle Knight) in 2011.
In addition to writing and extensively researching, I have become a regular presenter at writers' conferences and workshops. My novel Seeking Persephone was a finalist for a 2008 Whitney Award. I will be acting as the Mistress of Ceremonies at the LDStorymakers Conference in May 2011 as well as the Author in Residence at the Northwest Writers Retreat in the fall of 2011.
When not writing, I occasionally sleep, once in a while cook dinner for my family and very rarely clean my house.
