Like many suburban kids, I watched "The Wonderful World of Disney" on Sunday nights. The show ran some of Disney's animated films, as well as live-action ones. Back in the dinosaur age, before we had whole channels chock full of Disney (or whatever else you're into), this was a real treat, and we grabbed the popcorn and settled down in the living room to see what we were in for this week. (I might be able to credit some of my love of nature to this weekly show, too, as many of the features were about wildlife.)
Among my favorite Disney shows were the live-action films "Escape to Witch Mountain" and "The Cat from Outer Space." People with extraordinary mental powers! A cat who can speak so that humans can understand him! How cool was that?
Elements of these two films must have stuck in my brain, fermenting over the next decade. By the time I reached my teens, I was scribbling madly in composition notebooks, making up stories about whatever came into my head: first animal stories, and then yarns with a more human element. I seemed to gravitate over time toward action and romance, but I never lost that echo of magic or fantasy in my writings. Whatever else happened in the story, it had to have that touch of the otherworld in it.
And then came GEMINI - the paranormal romance I scribbled out before paranormal romance got cool. Before they even had a name for it, actually. This was 1989, and even *I* didn't know what the heck to call it ... except that it grabbed me. Apparently, it grabbed my friends, too, because that notebook got passed around so much that it was out of my hands more than it was in them. That's when I figured out I like sharing stories with others as much as I like writing them.
GEMINI got finished, and stuck in a drawer for another fifteen years. That's just about the time I discovered the Central New York Romance Writers. There, I met a room full of writers and kindred spirits, and began to realize that it was possible not only to pick my writing back up, but sell it. These writers are supportive, kind, funny, encouraging, and gutsy, and they pushed me to get gutsy, myself. So, I dusted off that old manuscript, revised it, submitted it, revised it, submitted it, and revised it again ...
... and it became THE SERPENT IN THE STONE. Though I published two novels prior to this one, SERPENT is the book that started it all, and for that, it'll always have a special place in my heart. I'm glad to share it with you, more than twenty years later, and I hope you enjoy it. THE SERPENT IN THE STONE is out now on Amazon (click here to purchase your E-book copy for Kindle), and releases in print and other E-book formats on June 28th. Thanks for your support, and happy reading!
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