LynnetteK

I was born in the North Carolina mountains more than a decade and less than a century ago. My family moved to Florida when I was 9, which was where I discovered Louisa May Alcott and the desire to tell stories.

I married my high school sweetheart when we both finished college and went with him to medical school in Tennessee. Our two daughters are Virginians by birth, but we lived in California, Maryland, and North Carolina, too, traveling in the Navy medical corps. The oldest daughter now calls Boston home and the youngest has started school in her native state. That gives us two really great excuses to travel!

Although the girls are out of the house, the animals are not. Bolick the Red (Doberman,) Puck the busy happy calico dog and Bentley the Shi Tzu brighten my days or drive me crazy, according to what's going on at the moment.

Out in the pastures are the five horses who have made my dreams come true. TBone, a brown, black and white Spotted Saddlehorse, was my daughter's pony and is now my driving buddy--we tool around the countryside at a fast trot, having a good time. Abby is my riding horse, a grand dame at almost 19. Suzette is The Princess, an Arabian-Warmblood cross we're grooming for dressage. And then there are the two new girls, Lucy and Joy, American Cream Draft Horses who bear a striking resemblance to unicorns.

I love gardens, forests, pastures, mountains and the ocean. My favorite season is autumn, followed by winter. I can't keep houseplants alive but do pretty well with bulbs. I've been a Girl Scout leader, a choir director, a physiology lab assistant and a physics teacher; I play the piano, bassoon, hammered dulcimer, recorder, clarinet, handbells, and glockenspiel with varying levels of skill.

Most of all, I love to write books, which allows me to be anyone, do anything, go anywhere I can imagine.