Many people think writers know from birth that they were meant to be writers. Not so. I had been a voracious reader since the age of three (God bless Dr. Suess) and I wrote my first story at the age of six, but writing for a living seemed, well, too ordinary. I wanted an exotic life. You see, the first decade of my life was the 60's, I lived on top of a hill in the Santa Monica Mountains next to a hippie commune, I had intellectual parents, and I wanted to do something important. Something groovy. I decided to become a biologist and go to the Galapagos Islands to study iguanas. Why the Galapagos? Why iguanas? I haven't a clue. I was only seven when that brilliant career idea came to me.

Then my parents decided to get away from big city life, and I found myself in Kuna, Idaho (population at the time: 634). It was while at Kuna High School that I discovered biology as a career was not for me. We had to dissect frogs, and the minute I had to pull apart a frog's insides with those tweezer things, I threw up into the nearest waste basket and knew I had to find a new career goal.

After rebelling against small town life in the only way I could by creating and publishing an underground high school newspaper, I went off to college, thinking I might make this writing thing work somehow and become a journalist. That sounded great, until I discovered I was a capitalist at heart. What I really wanted was to make money. Writers and journalists, I thought, don't make money. They also face rejection all the time—why would anyone set herself up for that? I changed my major and graduated from college with a business degree and a vague ambition to become rich. In 1982, after backpacking my way through Europe for two months, I came home and told my father I wanted him to back my first business idea—an espresso coffee stand. He refused, saying nobody would pay three dollars for a cup of coffee just because it had steamed milk in it. (Whenever I want to make him feel very humble, I remind him of this). Then I thought up a brew pub (there weren't any then, at least not in Idaho) but since my father hates beer, another brilliant business idea went south. You see, I kept coming up with ideas that needed financial backing, and the only person I knew who had any money at all was my dad. But then it hit me. Why not try a career that didn't need anybody else's money?

Now, I know you're thinking that's when I became a romance writer. Oh, no, no. I became a caterer. While working a day job selling advertising in Los Angeles, I ran a full-service catering and bartending business on the side. The two careers did work together, since my advertising clients were movie studios and record companies, and those people throw huge parties. What followed was three years of fun, fun, fun. I catered and bartended parties for Hollywood execs and advertising agencies. I became the caterer for LA's semi-pro soccer crowd, including Rod Stewart's team, the Exiles. I've done the catering for Irish dance competitions, intimate French bistro dinners for two, and if you ever want any recipes for Armenian wedding feasts, I can help you out. I loved the 80's.

But something happens to you when you turn 30, and la vida loca just doesn't seem as fun anymore. I wanted to buy a house, and even with two jobs, a house in a decent LA neighborhood wasn't affordable. So, I packed my bags and moved back home to Idaho.

I got a new advertising job, but I still hadn't quite found myself yet. I kept yearning for a satisfying career that didn't require me to work for somebody else. That's when writing books became my new life ambition. I knew most writers didn't make much money, but I reasoned that it would all work out somehow, and I would be like Jude Devereaux or Judith McNaught. You see, I had always been a sucker for a good love story, and romance was what I loved to read, so writing romance seemed like a great career move. How fun it would be to have a job like that. And you know what? It is.

I sold my second manuscript to Harper Collins, and that manuscript became my first published historical romance, Prelude to Heaven. Now, after twelve published books and a thirteenth one on the way, I don't own a coffee stand, brew pub, or catering company. I own words. I love creating stories for a living, but the best part of my job is that I'll never be forced to dissect a frog.

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	Which of your books are part of a series, and what order do they fall in?
NEW! posted: 03/05/07	My first series, which I call the Guilty Series, is composed of four books. In order, they are: Guilty Pleasures, His Every Kiss, The Marriage Bed, and She’s No Princess. My latest book, And Then He Kissed Her, is the first of a new set of connected books called the Girl-Bachelors Series, with heroines who earn their living and all live in the same Victorian lodging house.

	Why did you decide to start a new set of connected books? Why didn’t you just continue the Guilty Series?
NEW! posted: 03/05/07	I wanted a change, a new challenge. While I love writing books in a series, there is always a time when a writer has to shake herself up and do something completely different, and I felt the time was right to do that. I may go back and write more books in the Guilty Series, but only if I feel I can do something fresh. For now, I’m focused on the Girl-Bachelors Series.

	Your new series is very late Victorian. Every historical writer seems to be doing the Regency era. Why did you pick the late Victorian time period?
NEW! posted: 03/05/07	It fit the concept of the Girl-Bachelors Series. In And Then He Kissed Her and the books that will follow it, the heroines are career women, and this phenomenon was unheard of for women who came from genteel backgrounds until the latter part of the nineteenth century. A series about girl-bachelors would have been impossible to set any earlier.

You have had some children in your books that would make great heroes and heroines when they grow up, but you never seem to write their stories. Why not?

NEW! posted: 03/05/07

I always think about it, but I never do it. The reason is difficult to pin down. I think perhaps it’s because I always like my characters to have some angst. A messed up childhood, or poverty, or something tragic that they must overcome. They gotta have issues. But at the end of each book I write, I like to think the hero and heroine of that book are so in love, and so happy, and such great parents, that their children don’t have any of that angst. I like to think the children of my heroes and heroines have such happy lives they would be too boring to write about!

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