Authors

This multi-published author has had her novels translated into more than twenty languages. Her trade paperback novel Once A Warrior was released to stellar reviews in Publishers Weekly, other print magazines, and on the Internet. An electronic edition of her best-selling novel The Lady and The Champ has been received equally well by the reviewing community. In 1998, she founded her own small press, Delphi Books, named for the Oracle of Delphi who was reputed to have been a woman over the age of fifty. (Note that neither the Oracle nor Fran are tellin' how far over!)

She is a member of SPAN, Novelists, Inc., and The Authors Studio. In addition, she was a Featured Author at FictionForest.com and is a Showcase Columnist for Amazing Authors E-Zine.

Ms. Baker is currently working on two new novels, Silken Ties and Poetic Justice.

Visit Fran Baker's website

Madeline Baker was born in California and has lived there all her life. One night, when her husband was at work and the kids were in bed and there was nothing on TV, she sat down and started writing a book of her own, simply for the fun of it. She knew nothing about writing or publishing, but that didn't matter, since she never expected anyone else to read what she wrote. She wrote three stories and hid them under the bed.

One day a friend mentioned she was writing a book, and Madeline blurted out that she had written one, too. After much wheedling on the friend's part, Madeline gave in and let her read COMANCHE FLAME. Encouraged by the praise of two of her friends, Madeline decided to try to find a publisher.

No easy task. Six years and 31 rejections later, she sold RECKLESS HEART, the third book she'd written, and she's been writing ever since.

After 14 historicals, she wrote a short story called MASQUERADE. She found she loved writing about vampires, and dark, dangerous, tormented heroes! Which was how Amanda Ashley was born.

Visit her website at Mandy's Madhouse.

Anne Barbour developed an affection for the Regency period while living in England. She now lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota with her husband, a retired lieutenant colonel. She is the mother of six children, all grown, and she loves to boast of her six grandchildren. She was named Best Regency Writer of the Year by Romantic Times for Lord Glenraven's Return.

Alissa Baxter was born in South Africa, and grew up with her nose in a book on a poultry farm in Mpumalanga. After school and university, where she majored in Political Science and French, she started writing her first novel, The Dashing Debutante.

Alissa then moved to Switzerland before joining Emirates Airline as a flight attendant. When her stint with the airline was over, Alissa traveled to London and did an odd assortment of jobs, while researching her second historical novel. She returned to Durban nine months later, and wrote Lord Fenmore's Wager. Alissa then moved to Cape Town where she wrote her third novel, Send and Receive, and worked as a publicist for a local TV station, before moving to Johannesburg, where she currently lives.

Visit Alissa's website

Alissa's two Regency romances are available at Regency Reads.

Cynthia Baxter grew up on Long Island, earned her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, and went on to get an M.A. in business from M.I.T. After a four-year stint of writing part-time while working as a Marketing Manager, she abandoned the corporate life in order to concentrate on her novels. Under her Cynthia Blair name, she has had more than forty novels published, for both adult audiences and young adult readers. Under her pen name, Cynthia Baxter, she currently writes two mystery series. The Reigning Cats & Dogs mystery series, featuring Long Island veterinarian Jessica Popper, includes such books as DEAD CANARIES DON'T SING, PUTTING ON THE DOG, and MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DIE. The Murder Packs a Suitcase mystery series, about travel writer Mallory Marlowe, includes the books MURDER PACKS A SUITCASE, set in Orlando, and TOO RICH AND TOO DEAD, set in Aspen. Ms. Baxter lives on Long Island, N.Y.

Carole Bellacera is the author of four acclaimed novels published by Tor/Forge Books. Her latest novel, CHOCOLATE ON A STICK, a quirky book about an elderly Appalachian couple on the run from a nursing home in a red Corvette, released in trade paperback by Baycrest Books in September 2005, was a 2005 Kentucky Literary Award in Fiction Nominee.

Carole's first novel, BORDER CROSSINGS, a hardcover published by Forge Books in May of 1999, was a 2000 RITA Award nominee for Best Romantic Suspense and Best First Book. It was also a nominee for the 2000 Virginia Literary Award in Fiction, a 2000 finalist in the Golden Quill award and in the Aspen Gold Award, and winner of 1st Place in the Volusia County 2000 Laurel Wreath Award.

Carole's work has appeared in various anthologies such as Kay Allenbaugh's CHOCOLATE FOR A WOMAN'S HEART, CHOCOLATE FOR A COUPLES' HEART and CHICKEN SOUP FOR COUPLES, and in magazines such as Woman's World, The Star, Endless Vacation and The Washington Post. Her latest novel, TANGO'S EDGE, will be released by Cerridwen Press in December 2007.

Visit Carole Bellacera's website

Carole also offers a FREE short story, "Through Romance-Colored Glasses," on the Belgrave House website.

Back in 1991, Marilyn Clay was a successful commercial artist living in Dallas, Texas, and in her spare time, an aspiring Regency romance writer. Since then, she has sold 6 Regency romance novels to Kensington Books, and was invited to contribute essays to an Encyclopedia of Romanticism, published by Garland and released in 1992. Marilyn also co-wrote, co-produced and appeared in The Romance Writer's Video, a 90 minute videotape which gives aspiring writers a wealth of vital information useful to them on their road to publication.

Believing that a need existed whereby Regency romance writers could share their research with one another, Marilyn Clay began publishing THE REGENCY PLUME Newsletter in 1991. THE REGENCY PLUME soon went worldwide, with well over 1000 subscribers from all over the world--England, Canada, Australia, Thailand, Italy, Germany, Hungary and South Africa. THE REGENCY PLUME is now going into year 16 and Marilyn has also written and published many research books on the Regency period.

Marilyn Clay's Regency Romances are available on Regency Reads.

Visit Regency Plume/Marilyn Clay website

Peter Clement, M.D., headed an emergency room at a major metropolitan hospital. He now maintains a private practice, lives with his partner, and has two sons.

Lethal Practice was short listed for the Arthur Ellis Best First Novel award. Clement also published six more bestselling books, and over a million copies of his works have been printed in ten languages. His eighth novel, The Darkness Drops, will be released in June.

Nancy J. Cohen is a multi-published author who began her career writing futuristic romances as Nancy Cane. Her first title, CIRCLE OF LIGHT, won the HOLT Medallion Award.

After four books in this genre, she switched to mysteries to write the popular Bad Hair Day series featuring hairdresser Marla Shore, who solves crimes with wit and style under the sultry Florida sun. Several of these titles made the IMBA Bestseller List. PERISH BY PEDICURE and KILLER KNOTS are the latest books in this humorous series. Returning to her roots, Nancy’s fifteenth title is a new futuristic romance, SILVER SERENADE.

Mary Chase Comstock is the author of several Regency romances and ascribes her affinity for that time period to reincarnation (although she does not believe she was welcome at Almack's in that life). As Mary Chase, she is an educational technology consultant and has written numerous articles and books on curriculum integration, visual learning and literacy. She holds a PhD in Literacy and Schooling from the University of New Hampshire, but only mentions it eight or ten times during a casual conversation. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her Scottish Terrier, Irish Wolfhound and Brazilian husband.

Mary Chase Comstock's Regency Romances are available on Regency Reads.

Visit Mary Chase Comstock's website.

Paula Corbett only wrote one book--Maid in Boston, which is available free as an ebook on the Belgrave House website.

In 1983, three friends got together to attempt collaborating on a Silhouette Desire. We gathered each week and plotted three chapters at a time, assigning one to each of us. And the next week we'd come back and do it again, knowing more about the story because we'd worked with the characters for a week.

It was a unique experience for the women--Barbara Turner would go on to write seven Silhouettes of her own, Miranda Coffey would eventually move from short stories to poetry, and Elizabeth Neff Walker would work her way out of the log jam of a writer's block she was suffering. Not bad for one small book!

Our collaboration resulted in a sale to Silhouette Desire and the book was published in August of 1984. We hope you'll enjoy Maid in Boston.

Carola Dunn is the author of more than 30 Regency romances, as well as 16 mysteries (the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series is set in England in the 1920s). Ms. Dunn was born and grew up in England, where she got a B.A. in Russian and French from Manchester University. She travelled as far as Fiji before returning to settle in California. After 40 years in the US, she says she still sounds as if she arrived a month ago.

Prior to writing, Ms. Dunn’s various jobs included market research, child-care, construction--from foundation trenches to roofing--and writing definitions for a dictionary of science and technology. She wrote her first novel in 1979, a Regency which she sold to Warner Books.

Now living in Eugene, Oregon, Ms. Dunn has a son and two grandchildren living in California, and a large black dog named Willow who takes her for a walk by the Willamette River each morning.

Carola Dunn's Regency Romances are available on Regency Reads.

Visit Ms. Dunn's website to learn more about her Regencies and the Daisy Dalrymple mysteries.

Kathy was born in rural Liberty, New York. She left New York state to attend Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, where she met her future husband. After college and his four years in the U.S. Navy, during which Kathy earned her master’s degree at Old Dominion University and taught for a time at Tidewater Community College in Virginia Beach, Virginia, they returned to Maine and settled in the western mountains region on twenty-five wooded acres.

Published first in nonfiction, then children's books, then romance, Kathy currently writes the Face Down Mystery Series featuring Elizabethan gentlewoman Susanna, Lady Appleton, the Diana Spaulding Mysteries, set in 1888 in various places in the U.S. and featuring journalist Diana Spaulding, and a contemporary mystery series under a pseudonym. Of her fourteen published romance novels (some historical, some contemporary, and two paranormal) six could also be classed as romantic suspense, including the time-travel novel ECHOES AND ILLUSIONS. Kathy's nonfiction includes THE WRITER'S GUIDE TO EVERYDAY LIFE IN RENAISSANCE ENGLAND and HOW TO WRITE KILLER HISTORICAL MYSTERIES (forthcoming in 2008).

Kate Gallison lives in Lambertville, New Jersey, with her husband and their cat. She has three private eye stories and five traditional mysteries to her credit. Under the name of Irene Fleming, she is at work on a series about the early days of the film industry.

Roberta Leah Gellis was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1927. Her love of science and literature has greatly affected her life, from her Hunter College days, when she majored in chemistry and English literature, to receiving her M.S. in biochemistry at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. She has also worked as a technical editor for McGraw-Hill Book Company, as a research chemist and as a teaching assistant at N.Y.U. (where she obtained an M.S. in Medieval Literature and completed work for a Ph.D.).

At present, in addition to her writing, Ms. Gellis is trying to put as many of her works into digital format as possible. She loves print books, but the ability to carry hundreds of books with her and relieving overflowing bookshelves is entirely enticing.

Judy Griffith Gill has been writing since she was big enough to hold a pencil, and is the author of more than three dozen novels of contemporary and futuristic romance.

Judy says, "I always think it should get easier. It doesn't. But it's always fun, always an adventure. I love watching the characters come alive and take over the writing process. I'm often nothing more than a set of fingers attached to a keyboard while some magical process, a symbiosis between brain and monitor screen, is what creates the stories."

Apart from writing, her greatest joy is boating, which she does for six months of the year with her husband on their 36 foot power boat along the coast of British Columbia. The other half the year, she lives in Costa Rica, 500 yards from the Caribbean Sea. She always has a laptop for when the writing bug bites, which seems to be daily.

Visit Judy's webpage and her blog.

Sandra Heath was born in Wales and now lives in England with her husband and first love, Robin, to whom she has been married for over forty years. They have one daughter and two grandchildren they see every day.

Sandra has produced over sixty Regencies, and continues to write them. She has a huge file of plots and storylines that still need to be aired. It's a case of trying to find time to write them all. . .

Sandra Heath's Regency Romances are also available on Regency Reads.

Emily Hendrickson has written more than two dozen Regency romances. She lives in Reno, Nevada, with her husband, a retired airline pilot. Of all the places she has traveled around the world, England is her favorite, and the most natural choice as the setting for her novels. In addition to her Regency romances, she has written a Regency reference book. Ms. Hendrickson is also the recipient of the Colorado Romance Writers 1997 Award of Excellence for The Debonair Duke. Most of Emily Hendrickson's Regency Romances are available as ebooks at Regency Reads.

Visit Emily Hendrickson's website.

Margaret James was born and grew up in Hereford, UK. She studied English Literature and Anglo-Saxon Archaeology at the University of London, then worked as a civil servant in Oxford, where she met her husband. She now lives in Devon with the same husband, their two children and two cats.

She works as a freelance journalist for the UK's Writing Magazine, is a founder partner of Storytracks, a literary appraisal agency, and is a long term member of the UK's Romantic Novelists’ Association. She is currently writing her fourteenth novel. All her published titles are on the UK's Amazon website.

When not writing, Margaret likes getting her hands dirty, so she enjoys gardening and is currently very happily occupied in trying to bring order out of the chaos of a former building site. She also makes time for pottery classes, and she loves travelling, especially in Italy - which, after Devon, is her favourite place.

Visit Margaret James' website

Amy Lake's interest in British history began with Lady Longford's biography of Queen Victoria, later extending into the Edwardian and Regency periods. She has published three Regency romances, with overlapping characters, of which The Earl's Wife is the first.

Amy has a particular interest in the Greek language, and after spending many years teaching herself ancient Greek-because everyone should have an impossible dream-she is now taking periodic trips to Athens to learn the modern language.

In her other life, Amy is an occasional college biology teacher. She lives in Washington state with her husband and two sons.

Amy Lake's three Regency Romances are available on Regency Reads.

Allison Lane is the author of 20 Regency novels and 6 novellas. She is a Holt Medallion Winner and the 2005 Romantic Times Career Achievement Award Winner, as well as National Readers' Choice Awards Finalist for three books. All of her Regency romances are available on Regency Reads.

Visit Allison Lane's website

Born and raised in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, Stephen Lewis holds a doctorate in American Literature from New York University, and he recently retired as Professor of English at Suffolk Community College on Long Island, New York.

After writing two mysteries set in Brooklyn (published by Walker & Company), Lewis turned his attention to seventeenth century New England. The stories set in Brooklyn dipped into Lewis's childhood, while the historical mysteries drew upon his expertise as a scholar of New England Puritanism.

Before turning to mystery fiction with The Monkey Rope (1990) and And Baby Makes None (1991), Lewis published short stories, poetry, scholarly articles, and five college textbooks, the most recent of which, Philosophy: An Introduction Through Literature (with Lowell Kleiman, Paragon House, 1990), is currently being used in a number of colleges.

Lewis continues working in various genres, having recently published "The Procession," a poem in Dunes Review, "The Raincoat," a short story in Paumanak Review, and two other stories: "Jerome and Jebediah" in North Atlantic Review, and "A Lick of Blood" in Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine. He is completing Murder on Old Mission, a literary historical novel based on an actual case involving a man who killed his pregnant lover in 1895 on Old Mission Peninsula in northern Michigan.

Lewis has two adult daughters and now lives on five acres in a restored farmhouse on Old Mission Peninsula in northern lower Michigan with his wife, Carolyn, and third daughter. He is an avid sports fan and claims to have had a near religious experience on the night when the Rangers won the Stanley Cup.

For more information on Stephen, please visit his website.

Sandra Madden enjoyed a lengthy career as a broadcast copy/promotional writer in Miami and Los Angeles. But her most rewarding work followed as a writer/producer/host for a Miami PBS television station where she focused on How-To series, public affairs - of the political kind - and women's issues.

She began writing historical romance in the evenings and was first published in 1998. Sandra went on to write contemporary romance as well and is the author of 13 books. Her 14th book, is non-fiction - the memoir of her husband, actor Dave Madden, best known to television viewers for his role as Reuben Kincaid on The Partridge Family.

Ms. Madden is the mother of two adult children and grandmother to four beautiful granddaughters.

Jennifer Malin is the author of five published romance novels and one published novella. She loved reading from a young age and still has her old Nancy Drew collection to prove it. In her teens, she tried to read only classics, until one day her mother lent her a Regency romance and told her, "This is like those Jane Austen books you read." The story captivated her so much that she stayed up all night to finish it.

Her first published novel, As You Wish, appeared in January 1999 as part of Jove's Time Passages time-travel series. Later, her ghost romance Eternally Yours helped launch Jove's Love Letters line. Leisure Books released her historical, For the Love of Lila in May 2002. Most recently, Zebra published her two traditional Regencies, Lord St. Leger's Find (a past Golden Heart winner) and The Artful Miss Irvine, as well the Regency novella "A Perfect Duet" in the anthology With this Ring.

Jennifer lives outside of Philadelphia with her husband, Martin, an ex-pat Australian. Besides reading, the two of them love movies, music and travel, especially to the UK. She's been to Europe four times and Australia three times and plans to keep expanding her horizons whenever possible.

You can visit her online at: Jennifer Malin's website

Once called the 'Reba McEntire of women's fiction' because her books are much like country songs, Curtiss Ann confesses that her stories come from her own experiences and are stories of ordinary women "living and loving and learning." Warm and funny and told with a flowing Southern voice, the books are set in small towns and filled with colorful characters and keen observations about human nature.

Curtiss Ann has received two nominations for the Romance Writers of America Rita, two Reader's Choice awards, and the Oklahoma Writer of the Year award. She lives with her husband on a forty-acre ranch in Oklahoma, where she enjoys her horses, Western culture, and rose bushes.

In addition to The Loves of Ruby Dee, Love in a Small Town, and If Wishes Were Horses (available as ebooks), Curtiss Ann's recent novels include Lost Highways, Driving Lessons, Cold Tea on a Hot Day, At the Corner of Love and Heartache and Recipes for Easy Living.

Visit Curtiss Ann's website, http://www.curtissannmatlock.com, to find out more about her and her books. You can write to Curtiss Ann at PO Box 118, Union City, Oklahoma 73090, or email her at curtissann@curtissannmatlock.com.

Ammanda McCabe has written 9 books and a novella for Signet Regency, with two more on the way. She's been a finalist for the RITA, RT's Reviewer's Choice Award, the Daphne DuMaurier Award, Holt Medallion, and National Reader's Choice Award.

When not reading or writing romance, she loves doing needlework, taking dance lessons in ballet and flamenco, and digging through antique stores in search of new treasures. She lives in Oklahoma with two cats and a Pug dog.

Visit Ms. McCabe's website at Amanda McCabe to learn more about her Regencies and other books.

Patricia McLinn is the author of 21 Silhouette Special Editions. She has promised her mother that she would tell her readers that the families and childhoods and traumas of her characters are not self-portraits. She had a great childhood and an even better family.

Patricia attended Northwestern University, receiving a BA in English Composition in three years, and then adding a Masters in Journalism in her fourth year. (She says, If you’re wondering why the masters, check out the want ads and see exactly how many jobs ask for someone with a degree in English Composition.)

She became a sports writer, with its great training in dialogue, character, motivation, conflict, goals. After being a sports writer for the Rockford (Ill.) Register Star and assistant sports editor at the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, she moved to the Washington Post. But it was because of the dried wallpaper paste that she really started writing.

“I’d bought a house with 50 years of wallpaper-paint-wallpaper-paint-wallpaper-paint layers. Sometimes four, five layers of wallpaper, always topped with paint. On every wall surface in the entire house. The only way to get it off was to chip at it with a wide-bladed putty knife. Chip after chip after chip.

“Under the influence of the chipping and the desiccated wallpaper paste, I started having a story idea. I’d type until I didn’t know what to say next, and then I’d chip. Pretty soon I’d have more ideas and I’d go back to typing. I thought it would be a short story, but it kept growing. There was something very inspiring about that dried wallpaper paste.”

After serving as an assignment editor and copy chief for the Post’s sports department, Patricia went part-time to write novels. Several years ago, she switched to editing for the Post’s news service.

And even without the wallpaper dust in her house, the story ideas keep coming. Belgrave House will be re-issuing her early Silhouette Special Editions as ebooks. Look for them throughout 2005.

For more information on Patricia, please visit her website.

Lynn Michaels started writing in sixth grade when her class formed a writers club. At the end of the year the other kids quit, but Lynn kept at it. By the time her two sons were in elementary school she had boxes full of stories. “If you don’t do something with this stuff,” her husband told her, “I’m going to make wallpaper out of it.”

Lynn’s first three category romances were published by Avon. Six more were published by Harlequin Temptation. In between she wrote The Dreaming Pool for Dell as Paula Christopher and two Regencies for Fawcett under the pseudonym of Jane Lynson. Her most recent book is  Marriage By Design from Ballantine.    

“I tell my husband Michael,” Lynn says, “that my writing career is all his fault.”

In 2003 Lynn received the Reviewers Choice Award for Best Contemporary Romance from Romantic Times Magazine for Mother of the Bride, her first romantic comedy published by Ballantine.

“The book begins in Kansas City, Missouri where we live, and I received the award in Kansas City,” Lynn says. “How cool is that?” 

Lynn is also a three-time finalist for the Romance Writers of America’s RITA award. She has published sixteen books and one novella, with more on the way.

Otherwise, her life is pretty much like yours. She grocery shops, pumps her own gas, cleans her own house and does the laundry. She’s a fiend for coupons, collects teapots, thimbles (though she doesn’t sew) and handmade bookmarks. Her most cherished possession is a misspelled writing award.

Lynn's Regency romances are available at Regency Reads.

Visit her website at: Lynn Michaels

Carla Neggers is the bestselling author of more than 40 novels, a favorite of millions of readers for her unique blend of fast-paced suspense and romance. Her award-winning fiction has appeared on the New York Times, USA TODAY, Publishers Weekly, Waldenbooks and Amazon bestseller lists. "Romantic suspense has it all," Carla says. "A great love story, interesting characters, pulse-pounding action, a sense of adventure and drama and more than a dash of fun--I love it!"

A popular speaker at writers' conferences all over the country, Carla is a magna cum laude graduate of Boston University and a past president of Novelists, Inc., the only writers' organization devoted exclusively to multipublished authors of popular fiction. She lives with her family in central Vermont, not far from Quechee Gorge.

You can visit Carla's website at www.CarlaNeggers.com

Leslie O'Grady was born and raised in Con­necticut, where she lives with her husband, Michael. A graduate of Central Connecticut State University, she worked as a public-relations writer for a television station and a hospital before retiring to write fiction full-time. When not writing, Ms. O'Grady enjoys movies, museums, and collecting books about nineteenth-century England and Art Nouveau. Her other novels include Passion's Fortune and The Second Sister.

Visit Leslie's website

David R. Pepper is a family practice physician in Fresno, California. In addition to being on the academic teaching faculty with the University of California San Francisco at Fresno, he has been actively involved in all aspects of patient care, including obstetrics, pediatrics and internal medicine in both ambulatory and inpatient settings.

David Pepper is the father of two sons and a daughter.

Nina Coombs Pykare has published 54 novels in the romance, Regency, inspiration, historical, contemporary, gothic, and mystery fields under a variety of pseudonyms. Her publishers include Avalon, Berkley, Dell, Five Star, Heartsong, Leisure Lovespell, Manor, New American Library, Pocket Books, Silhouette, Zebra, and Lion Press Ltd. "I have literally written since I could hold a pencil," Nina says. “I started college at 32, earned a Ph.D. in English at 42, and sold my first novel when I was 46."

Nina has sold hundreds of short stories and articles, as well as puzzles and poems for children of all ages. Some of the latter were written for her four sons and daughter, and now for four grandsons, five granddaughters, and one great-granddaughter. Nina taught a novel writing class for Writer's Digest from 1988 to 2006 and has also taught classes at nearby schools and the YWCA. She was married for 20 years, has been divorced longer than that, and still believes love is the most important thing in the world.

Nina Coombs Pykare's Regency Romances are available on Regency Reads.

With several million books in print and New York Times and USA Today's bestseller lists under her belt, former CPA Patricia Rice is one of romance's hottest authors. Her emotionally-charged contemporary and historical romances have won numerous awards, including the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice and Career Achievement Awards. In addition to receiving the Bookrak Bestselling Paperback award, her books have also been honored as Romance Writers of America RITA® finalists in the historical, Regency and contemporary categories.

A firm believer in happily-ever-after, Patricia Rice is married to her high school sweetheart and has two children. A native of Kentucky and New York, a past resident of North Carolina, she currently resides in St. Louis, Missouri, and now does accounting only for herself. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, the Authors Guild, and Novelists, Inc.

Visit Patricia Rice's website for more information about her and her books.

My Life and Times

Though born and raised in Missouri, I've lived for twenty years in Palo Alto, California, where my two mystery series featuring homemaker/writer Bridget Montrose and vagabond Liz Sullivan take place. After doing newspaper work, public relations work, technical editing, and romances, I really enjoy writing mysteries.

I set most of my books where I live, to avoid all that tedious research, but my fictional Palo Alto shares only physical characteristics with the real one, and perhaps a certain mind-set. The characters and local events are made up--that's the fun part, after all. I have a couple of things in common with my fictional sleuths--I garden, and I write for a living. My life is much duller than theirs, believe me. In fact, I'm thinking of getting myself a fictional life, which I can make much more exciting.

I love writing mysteries. It's like letting your life get wildly out of control, and then--presto!--imposing order on it. Talk about personal satisfaction--I certainly can't get my real life cleaned up like that. But there's also the deeper satisfaction we all achieve as mystery readers. The books we love do involve violence, even when it's off-screen. But in fictional crime, that violence is contained, and turned from randomness to something motivated by human passions, something we can understand. And then, at the end, there is justice. That's certainly better than what we get from the newspapers or TV.

For more information on Lora Roberts [Smith], visit the website Lora shares with Nuns, Mothers and Others Mystery Writers.

Joan Smith is a graduate of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and the Ontario College of Education. She has taught French and English in high school and English in college. When she began writing, her interest in Jane Austen and Lord Byron led to her first choice of genre, the Regency, which she especially liked for its wit and humor.

She is the author of over a hundred books, including Regencies, many with a background of mystery, for Fawcett and Walker, contemporary mysteries for Berkley, historical mysteries for Fawcett and St. Martin's, romances for Silhouette, along with a few historicals and gothics. She has had books in the Doubleday Book Club and the Literary Guild, been on Walden's Bestseller list, had two Regencies selected for the Romantic Times ten best ever Regencies, and had one book condensed in a magazine.

Her favorite travel destination is England, where she researches her books. Her hobbies are gardening, painting, sculpture and reading. She is married and has three children. A prolific writer, she is currently working on Regencies and various mysteries at her home in Georgetown, Ontario.

Joan Smith's Regency and Georgian romances are at Regency Reads.

Freda Vasilopoulos was born in Holland but grew up on a farm in Alberta, where her only entertainment was reading. From an early age she wanted to be a writer, but real life and work got in the way and she didn’t start writing seriously until 1980. Her first published book, a romance, appeared on store shelves in 1985. Subsequent books were mainly romantic suspense. Her Greek-born husband, John, and she have been married for almost 40 years, and yes, they still even like each other.

Travels in Greece and other Europeans countries have influenced the setting and plots of her books.

Starting at age three, I pursued a precocious career as a radio and stage performer until "retirement" at nine. My life-long love affair with New York City began when my parents moved to Manhattan, where I attended Friends Seminary. I left Wellesley College in my sophomore year to marry an Army Air Force pilot. Widowed at twenty-one, I moved with my infant son to Sherman, CT, where I plunged headlong into small-town community affairs. I soon remarried, and my multi-talented husband and I commuted for many years to The Buxton School in Williamstown, MA, where he taught art and architecture and I developed a reference library.

I have written throughout my adult life, selling articles on travel and camping to nationally circulated magazines and newspapers. Every summer my husband and I drove west to Colorado to a tiny cabin overlooking the spectacular San Juan mountains, and later to Little Cumberland Island, Georgia, a wilderness island owned by a conservation association of which we were members. It was during this period that I started collecting and learning about oriental rugs, an avocation that led to wonderful trips over a number of years with other "ruggies'" to Romania, Hungary, Austria and Turkey.

After taking my leave from community activities, I decided to try combining bits and pieces of my experiences with fiction. Did it work? Well, I have had had six novels published--three gothics and three mainstream romances. In addition, the three oriental rug collecting guides I wrote for Random House allowed me the luxury of combining two primary interests: writing and oriental rugs.

Widowed for the second time, I now live alone with my trusty Macintosh computer and two cats in Southbury, CT. Travel is still at the top of my "to do" lists: I have a time-share in Manhattan; I have tangoed in Buenos Aires and rented houses in France. In 2006 I'm flying to Patagonia for a week of trout fishing; to Scotland for a tour of the highlands and islands, and will round off the year with a week on Block Island, RI, writing and fishing. I just hope the bluefish will be biting!

JoAnn Wendt is the author of four historical romances. Prior to turning to novel-writing, JoAnn worked as a journalist. Her articles have appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers and anthologies.

Married to a now-retired Air Force pilot, JoAnn has traveled the world extensively and has lived all over the continental U.S., as well as in Hawaii and Asia. She and her husband currently reside in Reno, Nevada, where JoAnn continues to write novels.

Justine "Tina" Wittich has written "something" ever since she learned to scribble letters. Journalism sounded good, so she got her degree in journalism, but then she worked in radio, and liked writing radio copy better. But then she got married and they moved all the time, and about the time they settled she had children and a traveling husband and there were swimming classes (Tina taught the synchronized swim group) and tennis lessons and all that good stuff. She worked as a secretary, but soon took over editorship of a regional magazine, where she realized what she'd always suspected fiction is much more fun to write than fact. To support her unpublished writing habit, she freelanced public relations, and helped business college students look for jobs, after first teaching them professional development.

During this time she wrote a romance that was so bad even she nearly got diabetes reading it. But then she tried again, and again, and finally she sold three romances to Avalon Books. Then she sold them a mystery. Two years later, Five Star bought her two historicals, and a year later they published her award-winning romantic suspense.

Obviously, this woman's mind, like her life, jumps from one genre to another, but she is happy with romantic suspense, and is focused on writing her thirteenth manuscript. Or is it fourteenth?

An Ohioan born and bred, she lives in southeastern Ohio with her husband, Pete, and a black cat and an orange cat -- all of whom do pretty much as they please. Life is good.

Janet Woods was born and raised in Dorset, England, and has lived in Australia for many years with her husband and their family. Her books (31 so far) have been print published by Robert Hale, Simon and Shuster and Severn House in the UK. Most have sold on to large print and audio editions.

Janet usually writes historical romance and saga, but can turn her hand to modern stories and fantasy. She is an accomplished, well-published short story writer in the area of women’s fiction.

Nancy Means Wright has published 15 books of fiction and nonfiction, including 5 mystery novels (St. Martin's Press), a novella (Worldwide Library), a mainstream YA (Dutton), and two historical mysteries, Midnight Fires and The Nightmare (forthcoming Perseverance Press, '10 and '11). The Pea Soup Poisonings won the '06 Agatha Award for Best Children's/YA Novel, and the Great Circus Train Robbery was an '08 Agatha Award finalist. Poems & short stories have appeared in numerous magazines, including American Literary Review, Seventeen, Redbook, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine (forthcoming), Level Best Books et al.

A longtime teacher, actress-director, Bread Loaf Scholar for her first novel, Wright lives with her spouse and two Maine Coon cats on a dirt road in the environs of Middlebury, Vermont. Visit her website for more information.

Patricia Wynn is the author of nine Regency romances from Harlequin and Fawcett, and most recently a lead historical, Capturing Annie, from Dorchester. These novels have earned her critical acclaim and a nomination for the RITA Award from Romance Writers of America, as well as made her a two-time finalist for an Award of Excellence from Colorado Romance Writers.

Ms. Wynn holds a degree in history from Rice University. For the past twelve years, she has been writing romances set in the Regency and late-Georgian periods. Writing in the tradition of Zorro and The Scarlet Pimpernel, Ms. Wynn delivers in her newest, The Birth of Blue Satan, a heady blend of historical mystery and romantic adventure. The Birth of Blue Satan, first in a mystery series, has now been followed by The Spider's Touch, available from Pemberley Press.

Ms. Wynn's eight Regency romances are available at Regency Reads.