Harlequin Romance

A cat, Creamsickle, plays a leading role in bringing the hero and heroine together in THE MAGIC OF A FAMILY CHRISTMAS. This isn't an accident. My cat Sophia has done some remarkable things. She can cheer up anyone. She keeps the rodent population to a minimum in our little section of town. She meows if I yell...even if I'm "yelling" to call someone to dinner. Which has turned me into a much quieter person. But she doesn't get along with our other cat Fat Fluff.

We've figured out why. She believes she's a member of the family and Fluffy is just the cat. The pet.

It all goes back to the day we got Sophie. A few weeks before we'd had to put Fluffy's brother Basil to sleep. I couldn't seem to get over his loss. He was a wonderful, huge black cat who loved to hide in poinsettias. So it was awful.

My niece Kelli just happened to be driving home from Pittsburgh one Saturday and they found poor Sophie on the road beside a stretch of woods. She was so tiny she fit in the palm of Kelli's hand. She was also covered in dead leaves, and sneezing. A new mom, Kelli couldn't leave the poor kitten, so she brought her home and my sister suggested they call me since I had just lost a cat.

One of the greatest enemies to a writer is a crisis of confidence.  We lot tend to be a bit insecure at the best of times, but when things in the story don't go well - and this happens more often than we probably care to admit - we take it personally.  The crows of doubt feed on it and suddenly we have no idea what we're doing and the powers that be were foolish to take us on in the first place...we'll miss our deadline, our career is over.

Toys. We all need them.

What do you think shapes certain people into readers, and others into non-readers?

I've been thinking about this for weeks - since I had a conversation with some people who claimed they never read fiction and had no desire to do so.

My first website was actually a birthday gift from a friend, CJ Houghtaling. I'd written, probably, 15 books and still didn't have an Internet presence. CJ, being the generous person that she is, created a really nice website for me.

More good news for my favourite, A TRIP WITH THE TYCOON.

Isn't it pretty?  I just love this cover.  They did absolutely everything right.

Donna