Who loves to travel and see new places? Even though I am a home body—I love nothing more than curling up on a cold afternoon in winter with a mug of coffee, and a book or my kindle in hand—losing myself in new worlds, we also do a lot of travelling around researching settings for my books.  Even in summertime down under, you will often find me (when I am not writing or researching) swinging in my hammock with an icy glass of something beside me. But always, always with a story in front of me. I love reading, and wish I had more time to indulge, but new stories and new places beckon. But even though I love being home—being a Cancerian, home and hearth is very important to me—we hit the road each winter, and head off exploring settings and doing research for my stories. I’ve written contemporary romance, romantic suspense, and I’ve dipped my toe into historical and paranormal stories as well over the past six years since I began writing. My writing world is a place I love to be and I hope you enjoy visiting and seeing what I’m currently researching and writing, as well…

In my mid-twenties, I had a group of friends that got together every Friday night for wine tasting.  Sounds like a fairly mundane thing to do, particularly week after week. However, what made this group different was every tasting was blind. The guy who organized these get-togethers would typically choose ten wines, and put them in paper bags. Some weeks we’d know the theme of the tasting—he might ask everyone to bring a bottle of syrah, for example. Other weeks it was a complete mystery. He’d give us tasting sheets, some would make notes, some didn’t care, and at the end of the evening, we’d see what we tasted, and talk about the wines. This was my introduction to wine tasting. Over the course of the years I became a certified executive sommelier, which is the second tier, similar in experience to an executive chef. My husband and I also owned a wine bar. As any writer who has attended any workshop, or even read a book on writing, has heard, write what you know. Thus, my newest series, Butler Ranch, is set on the central coast of California, one of my favorite wine regions—and was hugely inspired by those…