Robynn Gabel

It was a little story about a donkey who ran away from the farm and had a lot of different adventures. I started daydreaming about what it would be like to travel to all the different places I saw in the National Geography magazine my mother got every month.

One would be the first love story I ever read in Junior High called "Mara, Daughter of the Nile." I loved the interplay between the characters. Also it was set in Egypt which I have always been interested in. Next would be the "Lord of the Rings". Tolkien had a fabulous writing style and fantasy was new to me. Sir Conan Doyle forever won my respect with his character "Sherlock Holmes". I considered his ability to write plot twists and mystery to be unsurpassed to this day. Dumas's "Three Musketeers" had just the right balance of adventure, loyalty, morals and romance. And "The Wolf and the Dove" by Kathleen Woodiwiss is what got me hooked on reading romances as a young adult and drove my desire to write romance.