I live in the Pacific Northwest—the beautiful country where I’ve centered the action in my first novel—with my two daughters, two geriatric cats, and a venerable Chihuahua. I am currently working on the second book in the Shuksan series, attending too many PTA meetings, co-running a house poetry series, enjoying my job as a dispensing optician, and pretending to be one of those parents who know what they’re doing. I have been called a go-getter, which worries me greatly.

Like the heroine in my first book, To Marry Well, my great-great grandmother traveled by train to a small town in Washington Territory to marry a man who she’d never met in order to provide a secure future for herself and what remained of her family. Unfortunately, my heroine’s real-life counterpart did not have a happily-ever-after. To Marry Well was created from my desire to give my great-great-grandmother the happy ending she deserved.