I’ve always dreamed of traveling to New York City. Ever since I set my Historical Romances there—Edge of Freedom Series (Bethany House Publishers)—I’ve imagined what it must have been like to walk the streets a hundred years ago, to see the ships sail into the harbor and witness the eager faces of the people as they stepped into America from Ellis Island. Alas, life intervened, and the trip I’d thought to take was pushed to the back burner. The desire to travel to the places I wrote about stayed with me, however, which is why I was so excited when my husband offered me the chance of a lifetime…the chance to choose where I wanted to go on vacation. Anywhere. Just the two of us. A second honeymoon, of sorts. While I appreciated the offer, I really couldn’t believe that my hubby was going to let me choose our destination with entirely no input from him. “I get to pick?” I asked, a trifle skeptically. “Anywhere at all?” “Absolutely,” he said. “Anywhere you want to go.” With a broad spectrum of places to choose from spread out before me, I found I didn’t even hesitate. I knew where I wanted…

THE HOUSE BY THE LAKE is an incredibly special book to me. It was inspired by three things: a trip that I took to Berlin, a true story about an old palace in the former East Germany and another true story about a woman who abandoned her apartment in Paris in 1940 on the eve of the Nazi invasion, leaving an un-spoilt treasure trove which was only re-discovered when she died in 2010. All of these things left me asking questions- and with a real desire to not only find out more, but to get to some sort of truth and understanding about the past- and in order to do that, I wanted to delve beyond the facts. So- I wrote a novel. But first, what were the facts that I had? Let’s start with Paris. In 2010, an apartment was re-discovered in the ninth arrondissement that had been abandoned for seventy years after the owner- a ‘Madame de Florian’- fled on the eve of the Nazi invasion. There is nothing unusual about the fact that the woman never returned to Paris, but what was extraordinary, was the fact that Madame de Florian left her apartment exactly as it was…

Although every female booklover can’t wait to read about the hero, whether a handsome cowboy with a soft spot for orphans, a rakish marquis who needs an heir, or a sophisticated jewel thief who donates his loot to charity, it’s the heroines that stick with readers. Here are the 5 characteristics for heroines that readers will sometimes love/sometimes hate, but will always remember long after they give the book to their mother-in-law. Heroines must be flawed. No one liked the girl in high school with perfect hair/clothes/teeth/car/parents…fill in the blank. Unless she happened to be us, that girl was annoying. Make sure heroines have plenty of nice attributes, but there also must be things for her to work on. My heroine in WHAT HAPPENED ON BEALE STREET hates people in her “personal space.” Beth Kirby often balks or runs in the opposite direction if people get too close. Heroines recognize their flaws and strive to overcome them. Just like we don’t like perfection, we also don’t like women who keep making the same mistake over and over. Consider the famous anti-heroine Scarlett O’Hara in GONE WITH THE WIND. Although Margaret Mitchel gave us plenty of reasons to hate her, no…