Why I Started Writing: “Class, since we’re learning about Central America, I want each of you to write a short story and include some of the main products of any country you choose.” And that challenge from a favorite grade school teacher is the reason why I started writing. I heard every word but “short.” With that assignment, I was instantly lost in the wondrous world of Story with its research and characters and adventure of people, pineapples, and plantations. Since then, along with the careers of marriage, motherhood, and insurance, and now, retirement, I’ve never ceased writing.

Authors Who Have Influenced Me: Catherine Marshall, Frances Hogsden Burnett, Walter Farley, C. S. Lewis, Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, Jack London, Agnes Sanford, Tom Clancy, Lewis Carroll, Dan Brown. These and countless others pulled me bodily into their stories and genres, and made my heart race as they immersed me in every emotion, sense, and scene they wrote. Their works made me stop and savor their worlds, both imaginary and real.

Books I Have Written: The Stonekeepers, my first novel, is an inspirational young adult suspense published in May of 2015 by Elk Lake Publishing. Birthed one cool fall morning as I sat with a cup of steamy coffee in one hand and a magazine in the other on the porch of our cabin in Western North Carolina. a single word captured my imagination, one I hadn’t heard before. I left—well, raced from the porch, to the computer, and began a new phase of my life. An insurance agent/business owner, I prayed and wrote the book between appointments, on lunch hours, early mornings—whenever I found a moment. The Stonekeepers is the story of a young woman who faces a man who knows more about her past than she does, who wants what she’s found, and threatens her life to obtain it. My goal in writing? To show in story that God is closer than breath, and there’s nothing more exciting and fulfilling than living a life of faith, loving and trusting Him with all your heart, mind, and soul. Choices and evil and troubles are ever present, but the Lord is with you in the midst of them—always.

What I'm Working On Now: Another inspirational novel filled with suspense. Ali’s about to start her senior year of college—that was the plan until her mother’s death. She decides to take a late gap year and go with her dad to Brazil—finish college later. Even before she leaves California, she discounts the sense of someone stalking her until it’s too late, not believing it could happen to her. On a hike. In the Amazon Rainforest … but that’s far from the end of her story.

And there’s a third inspirational novel. Far from complete, this one’s a mystery suspense that has its roots on the east coast of Florida and takes Barrie and her cousin, Lexi, heroine of The Stonekeepers, to an archeological dig in Mexico to find Barrie’s missing father. Things get fascinating, deadly, and dangerous when they probe their way too close to the truth.