“I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout birthin’ no babies, Miss Scarlett!” I love that classic line delivered by a frantic Prissy (Butterfly McQueen) in the movie Gone With the Wind. Makes me laugh every time and is a humorousquote uttered quite frequently where I work. In our case it is a complete joke since my “real” job is as an RN in the Maternal Child Health field. Specifically I am a 25-year veteran of Neonatal ICU nursing, so I can claim with all sincerity to be an expert in both laboring and delivering mothers and babies. My professional experience coupled with being a mother of two aided me tremendously in writing of Elizabeth Darcy’s pregnancy and delivery as well as those early weeks with a newborn. Ah, the memories! Lizzy’s pregnancy did not proceed exactly like either of mine did, nor was her delivery precisely the same, but lets just say there were definite similarities! And after witnessing and assisting in literally thousands of deliveries over the years, it was very easy to write a realistic scenario. To read more of BIRTHIN’ BABIES and to comment for a chance to win please click here. Visit FreshFiction.com to learn more about books…

Oh how I wish I could share with you all my personal adventures walking and driving over the pastoral hills and valleys of Derbyshire, England. But, alas, that is not the case. Among the many challenges I faced in writing my sequel series to Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice was the fact that this American girl has never stepped foot in the United Kingdom. Research in all its myriad facets became a way of life as I undertook the task of revealing life as it would have been lived 200 hundred years ago in Regency England. On the top of the list was the necessity to know as much about Derbyshire as I possibly could. This, after all, is where Pemberley is located and the county that the Darcys would have called home for uncounted decades prior. I needed to visualize the landscape, smell the indigenous flowers, hear the rumble of the River Derwent, feel the breeze on my skin, etc. Thank goodness for the internet with its wealth of maps, photographs, tourist websites, and historical articles. As I examined endless pages, I not only got a firm grip on what the land would have been like two centuries ago,…