My parents tell me I spoke my first word at 7 months and was talking in sentences by my first birthday. It's safe to say I've been telling stories ever since! Once I could hold a pencil, I started writing down my stories and illustrating them.

I had my first critique partner in ninth grade. We wrote lots of stories and assured each other how brilliant they were. Our treasured friendship continues to this day. Later we graduated to parody, collaborating on an alternative school newspaper that staked out editorial territory somewhere between the National Lampoon and MAD Magazine.

In university, I studied special education and met my future husband, the inspiration for many of my clever, nice-guy heros. While he was earning his doctorate in physics, I worked at a preschool and spent my lunch hours haunting the provincial archives. While tracing my ancestors to their origins in Georgian era Britain, I uncovered enough fascinating true stories to keep me in romance plots for years to come.

After we started a family, I wrote my first novel. When it was swiftly and wisely rejected by a publisher, I joined Romance Writers of America and began learning the skills I needed to write a saleable book. After three tries, I made the finals of the Golden Heart contest and won, to my vast surprise. On Valentine's Day 1998, I sold my winning manuscript to Harlequin Historical, who published it the following year as My Lord Protector.

Since then, I have written a dozen more books for Harlequin Historical, as well as two novellas and three on-line serials. My settings have ranged from 12th century Wales to Whitehorn Montana and even my native Atlantic Canada. In 2003, I ventured farther abroad to a world of my imagination when I sold two books to Harlequin's new fantasy imprint, Luna.

I live with my husband, four children and our bichon, Button, in Nova Scotia, Canada - a place steeped in history, romance and magic!