My "Miss Pierce's Protégées" series is a historical romance series set in Gilded Age New York. I began working on it after reading yet another historical romance set in this era in England. I thought that it would be fun to write an American-set romance set during the same time period. The Gilded Age was a fascinating period in American history, when everything was changing rapidly. I live in New York City, so I loved the idea of writing about my city over a hundred years ago. Many of the same buildings my characters would have seen and lived in still exist today.

My first stories were typed on my parents' electric typewriter, before we had a home computer. I would write a caption at the bottom of each page, then pull it out and illustrate the scene above the words. Then I stapled the pages together and wrapped a cover around them: the closest imitation I could achieve to a real, bound book. I wish I still had some of these early stories, but most were lost along the way.

I'm a creature of habit -- I still read my e-books on a Sony PRS-T2 (it's bright red!). I love the e-ink display, which feels a lot like reading a print book. I'm sad the Sony e-reader line was discontinued; it's a nice, basic model that has everything I need!