Under the Covers

I was that little kid hiding under the covers, reading with a flashlight. There was no way I was going to sleep when the wind was in the willows or the prince was waiting for Rapunzel to let down her hair!

Later, when other girls were practicing cheerleading or hanging out with boys, I was still laying on the bed reading. So I knew all about historical princesses like Joanna of Castile who married Phillip the Handsome but I knew nothing about flirting or sports. I could whip up a stellar English composition or an article for the school newspaper in nothing flat, so that’s when the passionate reader became the passionate writer! While getting a journalism degree, I also got my prince and married him at the age of 21. Yes, we’re still married and still like each other – most of the time!

As an Associated Press reporter, I called a famous astronaut to get a sound bite on women in space. Before I started recording, he told me “We’ll do the same thing to ‘em up there that we do down here!” and laughed. As a public relations specialist for a government agency, I was kissed by Shamu the whale. I ghost-wrote and edited for a publisher in New York and – while raising two kids -- freelanced PR and advertising for various companies. I’ve written two nonfiction books (under a different name) about sex, intimacy, and women’s health and spoke at conferences across the country.

When I wrote about women’s sexual health, I was fond of saying that “your biggest and most important sex organ is your brain” and my brain was set on fire in 2013 when I read Sylvia Day’s Bared to You.

Awed by the emotional sex, the complex family dynamics and the way Eva and Gideon healed each other, I started devouring about two romance novels a week. I got through about 100 books before I began fantasizing about my own characters and writing down their sexy thoughts and encounters. I’ve read 100 more books while writing Captain’s Orders and outlining four other books. I never fail to be amazed by how many ways we can write about how men and women meet, get to know each other and fall in love.