I ended up going through the back door with a historical romance, which I thought was a straight historical novel until I found out that those weren't in vogue anymore. The women's mass market paperback explosion had occurred. That's how I first got published.
What was your first published book?
Love's Pirate (1983) was the first, which I had called The Royal Mile. Of course, that was not a very sexy title; they said it sounded like a horse race. I thought it was wonderfully detailed and rich and accurate in Scottish history, which it was. But they wanted sex...
It was an 850-page manuscript, so I had to take out a lot of the history part. Thankfully, I was able to preserve enough of the history that people could read it for that as well as the love scenes. But I was not a romance reader. I was a mystery and historical reader, and I read a lot of biography. I was never at home in that genre (romance). I wanted to write mysteries.
What was your first mystery?
Just Desserts. At that point, I was still under contract for Harlequin-Silhouette. I planned to do three historicals for them, and then I didn't know what I was going to do. (I had done four historicals for Avon.) But I knew I had to get out of the (romance) business and do something different for a couple of reasons. One, in October 1989, my mother became ill and I knew it was going to be her last illness and I had to do something to keep my mind off of what was going on there. Also, I wanted to write something funny that she would enjoy.
In the meantime, for the last three years, I had been asked by our kids' parochial school to put together an overnight mystery at the local bed and breakfast and to auction it off. I put together these elaborate mysteries. It took a whole month of my life to put these things together, because I had all sorts of clues and extra characters running in and out, all kinds of things. It finally dawned on me that I was the only one who wasn't getting anything out of it except a lot of work, so why not take one of the plots and see if I can turn it into a mystery. It happened to be set in a bed and breakfast because that's where we were doing these things.
I wrote the first 85 pages within a month or so, staying up until 2 in the morning because I couldn't settle down at night. Unfortunately, my mother died that following February and never did get to read any of it, but it kind of saw me through. After 80-some-odd pages, it got to the point where I didn't know if I could do it, and my agent warned me that there wasn't the money in mysteries that there was in romance.
So I got that far and thought, "Now what the heck am I going to do?" I asked the regional Avon sales rep and another person in town whose opinion I respect to look at it. The rep very kindly took it to a regional sales conference and gave it to one of the senior editors. That was right after Thanksgiving. On Dec. 15, I got a letter from Avon offering a three-book contract, and I thought, "I guess I can do this." That's how the bed and breakfast series was born.
You seem to be quite prolific. Do you try for one book per year in each series?
Actually, the last couple of years there have been two in each series, and there will be again this year. I have newspaper training, and also public relations, and you have to meet deadlines. Of course, when you're out in the world doing that, you have to do it in the midst of all kinds of confusion.
My very first job was in Anacortes, a small town north of here. I was it for the paper. It was a five-day-a-week daily, and the front page had to be filled every day with local news. The editor occasionally would contribute a story, but other than that it was all me. I had to have everything in the back shop by 2 o'clock. If that doesn't teach you to do it fast, do it right, and do it the first time, then nothing ever will. Now I only work about four hours a day, and not every day. I try to, but it doesn't always happen.
Do you have a favorite out of the two series?
I enjoy both of them. In fact, I always compare writing them to house guests. When I start a new book, whichever series it is, I'm thrilled -- like having visitors come in from out of town. Then you get down to the last 25 or 30 pages, and you can't wait to get rid of them and move on to the other one. It takes 3 or 4 months to do a book; by that time, I've gotten the idea for the next one and I can't wait to get started.
