My life took a sharp turn in 2012. It seemed all at once my children grew up. And I discovered writing...

I'd been working at a homeschool consignment store, and because Pride & Prejudice is common fare for high school reading, we sold a lot of copies. My colleagues could not believe I had never read the book or seen the movie.

My boss loaned me the movies, and a few days later I slid the 2005 version into my DVD player. Obsession soon followed... I bet I watched the sparring of Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen ten times in ten days. When my daughter became interested, if she put the DVD in, all it took was for me to hear the music, and it beckoned me to the TV like a Siren.

Then, oh glory, I discovered fan fiction and period dramas which opened a whole new world to me.

One day I began to daydream about a story idea of my own...

Although I had done a good bit of inductive writing, I was a novice at fiction. The idea of my penning a novel was almost laughable. But ideas for Colonel Fitzwilliam and Charlotte Lucas meeting at a ball would not stop coming. When a very accomplished fan fiction author in England said she would help me, I decided to give it a go.

I distinctly remember the day when I first sat pecking out the first scene on my laptop. Instantly I was hooked. Four and a half months later I emerged from my small closet office with a completed manuscript and an email inbox of 120+ email exchanges to England with discussions on everything from adverbs to the roles of horses in Regency England.

It took another four month for six beta editors and a focus group to pick it apart, but the day UPS delivered my first bound copy with that glossy cover--well, it will stand out to me forever.

When new ideas began percolating while watching Downton Abbey, my stack of books on Regency doctors was soon replaced by World War I diaries. Now I'm thrilled to be releasing the first two book in my Great War Romance series, Darcy's Hope~ Beauty from Ashes: A World War I Pride & Prejudice Variation and Darcy's Hope at Donwell Abbey. Visit my website at the address above to see what else is in the works!

"Who can know what a year can bring?" {Colonel Fitzwilliam, Tree of Life.}