Author

I’ve always loved books (and movies) that could take me away to a different time and place.

Perhaps this is because, as the youngest child of a Navy pilot and a journalist, I did a lot of traveling early in life. Our family lived in a variety of states from coast to coast before ultimately settling in Savannah, Georgia. My parents instilled in me a love of travel and an excitement for learning that continues to this day.

My college years involved a good stretch of geography too, from two years at the University of Georgia (“How ‘bout them dawgs!”), to Montreal, Canada, where I earned my B.A. in English from McGill University. While I was in Canada I also gained fluency in French and developed an abiding passion for winter sports.

After graduation I spent a year in Ottawa, Canada, working at the National Arts Centre, where I enjoyed so many of my favorite things: speaking French (being bilingual was a job requirement); nights of theater, music, and dance (National Arts Centre staff got the unsold tickets for free!); ice skating on the canal in winter; admiring the profusion of tulips blooming everywhere in the spring.

Since then, I’ve traveled throughout the U.S. for work and study, from Oregon to Washington, DC, with stops in the Rocky Mountains and the heart of the Midwest along the way. I’ve always been of the firm belief that just about anyplace is worth visiting if you’ve never been there before.

In recent years I have been blessed to be able to travel to England several times, both for book research and to indulge in my love for English history, from Roman Britain to Shakespeare to the turmoils of the twentieth century. Each time I go, I always come back bursting with ideas for new stories!

When I was in high school I discovered the romantic suspense novels of Mary Stewart. I reread them all multiple times. So many of her books were set in fascinating locales like Greece and France, and I believe they forever sealed my conviction that romance and adventure go hand in hand. (The fact that I met my future husband while we were both on an assignment in the Pacific Northwest naturally confirms this.) No mere fangirl, I designed the itinerary of our first trip to southern France largely around locations from Mary Stewart’s Madam, Will You Talk?

An avid reader of both classic novels and historical fiction, I also enjoy biographies and histories, mining them for the vivid details to bring to life the characters and places in my books.