The 5th book in my Ghost of Granny Apples series, GHOST IN THE GUACAMOLE, is about to be released. Wow! The fifth! And that doesn’t count the two Granny Apples e-book novellas that are already out: THE SILENT GHOST and DUMMY OF A GHOST. When this series first started I really had no idea that it would be as popular as it is or would extend beyond a few books. (Not that I’m complaining!) Really, I didn’t. I thought after a couple of books, there wouldn’t be much to write about or that readers would grow tired of it. Boy, was I wrong! On both counts! Just as readers are thrilled to see another Ghost of Granny Apples mystery hit the shelves, so am I thrilled when the ideas for stories continue to present themselves to me. Maybe ghosts are whispering in my ear? Ideas for these fun books are triggered from all kinds of sources, but mostly it’s a place that plants the seed for a story. I love to weave a little bit of history into these stories about a 100-year-old pioneer ghost who helps her great-great-great granddaughter, who is a medium, solve murders or prevent them, and…

In my new romantic suspense HOUR OF NEED, Major Grant Barrett returns home from Afghanistan after the murders of his brother and sister-in-law to find that his infant niece and young nephew have been placed in foster care. Grant is thrust into parenting with no preparation for the role. Thankfully, he has a sexy neighbor and her family to help him. But when romance begins to form between Grant and Ellie, they find themselves juggling the chaos and demands that come with family life. How do they manage to find a second alone? To begin, they embrace the help of family. Ellie’s teen daughter loves to spend time with Grant’s nephew, and her grandmother bakes a mean casserole. Even Grant’s sister, a corporate attorney with less experience than Grant with kids, can learn to feed a baby, even if the learning process is comical. I have a houseful of kids and pets and chaos, and let’s face it: The most difficult thing about raising kids is finding the time to keep your relationship strong. Here are my tips for finding time for romance, learned over twenty years of marriage, kids, and chaos. 1. Teenagers are often great with young children…

Writing about women, their relationships with each other, with the other women in their families, and the growth they experience through it all inspires me. Relationships are complicated, and when they’re authentic… and when they’re strained, I find them really interesting. I just love the relationships women have with each other. I love the idea of women’s organizations, too. The Red Hat Society, for example. Their motto is: fun, friendship, freedom, fulfillment and fitness Right now I’d be a Pink Hatter, and I haven’t made that commitment to fun, friendship, freedom, fulfillment and fitness with the group, but when I hit 50 (in about 12 years), I think I will. Red Hats. Purple clothes. Spunky women on a mission to have fun, stay young, and live large. That sounds like a great way to stay young at heart and I definitely have the philosophy that you are as young (or old) as you feel. I’m all about staying and feeling young for as long as possible! That philosophy definitely represents many of the supporting characters in A SEAMLESS MURDER, book 6 in A Magical Dressmaking Mystery Series. They are the Bliss chapter of the Red Hat Society… and one of…

When a ballplayer retires, that’s the time to make a final review of his stats, adding up his career runs, his strikeouts, his RBI’s and analyzing his more controversial plays.  So that’s what I find myself doing with my old friend Adrian Monk.  After 125 episodes, and nineteen novels, it looks like the man’s fabled career is coming to an end.  After this last novel, there will be no more Mr. Monk mysteries.  And I feel enormously lucky to have been part of it from beginning to end. Monk’s first “on-base” happened in the late 1990s, when producer David Hoberman saw the movie As Good as It Gets and thought, “Hmm, could that annoying guy with OCD (Jack Nicholson) be a police detective?  Would that make good TV?”  He took his questions to comedy giant Andy Breckman who answered yes and yes and wrote the pilot. After several years in development hell, Monk came to bat in 2002 and made an immediate hit, one of the first basic cable series to have any real impact.  It was so successful that ABC, then in a ratings slump, showed our reruns in prime time.  The following year, NBC did the same, filling…