I love a lot of seasons but Spring is just plain fun for me to watch come in. Winter has its beauty, especially there at the end when I’m so sick of running my air-conditioning unit to make it through those late summer heat waves. I love getting my warm fuzzy slippers out and having the chance to use some of the quilts I’ve made. Still, spring is just plain magical. Now I’ll make a confession. I love birds. One of my favorite things to do in spring is to keep an eye on the Eagle Cam. There is a pair of Bald Eagles who next in Big Bear and there is a camera mounted so you can get a peek at them as they prepare their nest. It’s something I really enjoy, watching those bird as they tend their eggs and waiting…just hoping to see a chick or two. This year they have two little chicks. Wicked Highland Ways is the last book in my Highland Brides series. Some might look at it as the late summer piece in the collection but for me, it’s still springtime. Hey, Brenda has waited for five books to have her very own….

My favorite scene…hummm….I think in HIGHLAND FLAME, I really enjoyed the moments right before Diocail and Jane get married. She tried to leave and was caught by the villagers and he’s brought her back, only the villagers are demanding to know why she tried to leave. In this era, a noble wife was selected largely for her education. Meaning, she knew how to run a large household. Think back to the first time you had to manage a holiday dinner by yourself…I know I was using a set of my mothers recipes and even though I’d made them countless times, being the one in charge had me flustered big time! In this scene, Diocail’s men see Jane as a solution to the disarray the kitchens are in and winter will be very long without someone there to straighten things out. They embark on attempting to soften Jane up with drinking, while some of them are working on Diocail because he isn’t too interested in having a wife who doesn’t want him. Jane and Diocail don’t bend easily, both trying to escape the men surrounding them, only to end up facing one another. I hope you enjoy it as much as…

Without a doubt it was the taming of Quinton Cameron. Oops…sorry, had to duck and run there because that big, highland earl didn’t take too kindly to me announcing that he’d been tamed. Now Deirdre found it rather amusing. The curse of being a writer is that your characters are always with you and not always at the end of their story. HIGHLAND HEAT was a fun book to write. But it was also stressful. Both Deidre and Quinton were hard nuts to crack. They’d both loved and lost, through bitter betrayal. The sort which leaves a painful scar across the heart. More importantly, neither wanted to trust their tender affections to another again. Those are points I often find myself pondering when I write a historical—trust and affection. These people lived vastly different lives than we do today. Marriage was a business first. A matter for level headed consideration and not because women were chattel. That was certainly part of it, but think about it for a moment… You have a daughter and the average life span is less than fifty. There are few good employment professions for women so that leaves you knowing you will not be around…

Hello again! Thanks for having me back! I had such fun blogging last time about collections, I’ve been pacing around my office trying to think up another topic that might be as fun. Nothing like a little pressure to motivate…lol. Well, as I was brainstorming, I realized I reached for my tea about ten times. I adore tea. All sorts, flavors and kinds. So I thought, what are your fun foods? Some people call them comfort foods and I think that term applies well. My biggest one is the tea. In my kitchen there is an entire cabinet full of tea boxes. It smells really good when you open it up too. There are loose leaf and bags. Fruit tea…I’m sort of on a cranberry kick at the moment, last year it was almond. I’ve got mint growing in my yard that I often add to my tea when it is brewing. My latest thing has been decaffeinated varieties because I drink so much of it, I have to switch to “unleaded” or I can sit still to write! My Dad was and is a coffee man. I keep coffee in my house for when he drops by. A lesson…

Isn’t it amazing how many different sorts of collections there are out there? I know that I’m constantly amazed when I catch a report of some person’s passion for an item which I wouldn’t have considered valuable…like the lady that collects dryer lint. Yes, you read that right. That little vent in the front of the dryer that most of us empty straight into the trash is something that at least one woman considers worthy of being collected. She makes art out of different colors it seems. Now most of us, me included, will claim that we drive our living partners insane with the stacks of books we have carefully stored in our closest and on shelves. Yes…I know where each and every book is dear!!!! So no thinking you can sneak a few into the donation bags; that will be the book I go looking for next. LOL! I really do have a collection of paperbacks that I consider quite worthy of taking up space in my home. My passion for writing grew out of a very healthy appetite for reading. The other thing that I’ve always enjoyed is sewing. I adore fabric. My family might try to tell…