The heroine of my new release, TRUE HIGHLAND SPIRIT, has an unusual occupation for a laird’s daughter in medieval Scotland. Due to the poverty of her clan, and her natural prowess with a sword, she joined the group thieves led by her brother, who roam the countryside looking for unsuspecting travelers from whom they “request” a donation to the fund for wayward highwaymen. While this was admittedly unusual, there are several cases of females from this era donning armor and leading the troops, which have survived through history. I can only imagine that women fought beside men in more instances which were never documented. Morrigan is actually named after a mythological Celtic goddess of war, strife, and sovereignty. The fact that powerful woman warriors exist in myth show that this concept was one that existed. Several examples of women warriors also exist in history in the 14th and 15th centuries. It was not unusual for the wife of a lord to take command of a besieged garrison if the lord of the castle was away. However, Agnes Randolph, Countess of Dunbar and March, earned herself the nickname of Black Agnes by her brash antics in the siege of Dunbar. Black…

When I was working as a television and radio host “in another life,” I once interviewed a very famous romance writer who responded rather curtly to my question about her techniques when researching the setting and background of her characters. “Listen honey,” she replied with an edge to her Texas twang, “nobody cares who’s king–or what kingdom he’s from!” I guess she meant that, in her view, the characters’ backgrounds and the world they inhabited were unimportant. What mattered in historical romance was the sex. And I suppose for some readers that tends to be true. But not necessarily for other lovers of historical fiction–which is probably why I’ve gravitated toward writing a strong love story in my books—but I have always felt it important to include the “who, what, where, when, & why” about a story to bring imagined people to life.  Given these precepts I learned as a journalist, for me, this meant grounding my stories with strong sense of place and the history underpinning it. I’ve always felt that what intensifies the bond between readers and the books they love (to say nothing of the bonds between a book’s characters as they fall in love) is revealing…