What are your favorite books?
Well—if you mean favorite formative romance books, I would have to say that Jayne Ann Krentz/Amanda Quick/Jayne Castle, Linda Howard and Elizabeth Lowell are the three authors that made me want to become a writer. They saved my bacon when I was in my twenties, lost and drifting and more or less penniless. I would hang out in bookstores and read those authors’ romances straight through while standing right there in the aisles, just to get that endorphin hit so I could make it through my day.
I wanted to pay it forward, give that magic back. I feel like I’ve succeeded when I get one of those wonderful letters from a reader saying that I helped her through her mastectomy or helped her through a terrible divorce, or whatever. That makes me happy and proud. I’m so grateful to those writers and many others for performing that mood-lifting sorcery for me over the years! It’s true magic. I’m delighted to deal professionally in magic. It’s what I dreamed of as a kid. I just never dreamed that it would be such hard work.
Then there are favorite all-time books from my childhood. Anne Of Green Gables, the entire series by L.M. Montgomery, Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings trilogy, and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, hands down. I re-read those books all the time. They make me cry every time.