All my alter-egos live in Northern Canada, share a home with brilliant humans, and cats and dogs who are almost human, and roving dust-bunnies we've all agreed to ignore. They are, of course, brilliant as well—the cats and dogs—the dust-bunnies not so much, at least not that we've noticed so far... ;-)

How my book series came to life:

The Romances was where I started as a writer. Why? Because at that time the only way a newby like me could submit a book directly to a publisher was in the romance genre. The fact is, many mainstream writers today cut their teeth writing romance. I figured, why not? So I gave it a good try, writing 10 romances I'm proud of. No need to hide that I wrote them. Those were the books I learned my craft on. At first I wrote to market, as they advised, but later, once I'd hit my stride, I wrote what I loved to read myself. I wrote stories of good people with real challenges, making their way in this crazy world, finding love and community. My interest was in their choices, how they treated people and their community. How they loved and were loved. How they made a difference.

While I was honing my romance novel writing skills, I was selling short mysteries to magazines. It was quite lucrative, actually, and gave me faith I was doing something right.

The Time Travel series came next. Oh how I love this series. Much of D.O.A. from the Earth Survives series is set on the Roberts' family’s 100 off-the-grid acreage along the Peace River in northern British Columbia. Once we bought the property—a lifetime dream—we began creating an off-grid getaway for weekends with family. We stay the summer, raise meat bird chicken, and have raised pigs as well. We have a huge garden, an a fledgling orchard, and three bee hives... It continues to be an adventure. Some summers we fill 6 acres with sunflowers alone. OMG—gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous! There were and still are no services to the property, and that meant it was on us. It was a challenge, but we built an off-grid sanctuary we love. That's when I began to think, what if there was no 911 to call, no grocery store, no gas station, no police or firefighters to the rescue. What then?

My Earth Survives series began more seriously when a man brought his son down an old forest road to shoot up a computer on Boxing Day. My son and husband were stunned. That's what you are teaching your son? My husband and son cleaned it up of course—not our property—but still. Can you imagine the potential damage those plastic and metal shards could do to a forest animal? To the environment? But this incident opened another train of thought in my head. If left on our own, how would we behave when no one was looking? Would we be honourable, honest, generous? Would we be brave? Would we take or give? Would we join together or isolate? Would we thrive or would we falter? Human nature can be tricky.

I set out to write what I believed was possible, and fell in love with my characters along the way. Never did I imagine the adventures, scrapes and dangers they would face. I'd approached an agent regarding this plan early in the process. He liked it, but said, you think you can sell a two book series as a newby? How discouraging. By then, indy publishing was becoming a thing. If you worked hard enough, you might make it. I dug in and worked hard. Well—that first idea became a huge 4 book series and I love every single page. The story just grew and grew. The books are big, but they read fast. I love them still.

So much so, I'm hoping to write a series of origin stories for my favourite characters one day. How did they survive the pandemic? What happened to them in their corner of the world before they all met up and joined forces? How did they discover they had courage? How did they do the hard things? If I do squeeze this project in, I'll release an anthology of these origin stories. I'm already giving away Bill's origin story—"The Preppers Were Right" and Catherine's origin story "Shattered Trust" here on the site—go grab an origin story!—they were tremendous fun to write.

The Cozy Mysteries came next, and I'm currently at 9 books at the moment, with plans for more. They are exceptionally fun, and are my current favourite to write. I've set my cozy mystery series in imaginary small towns along the west coast of Canada and the States, because that's an area I know well and love. As always, the names of local towns have been changed to protect the guilty…. LOL! I'm a huge animal lover, so naturally, my furry sidekicks began budging into my writing space, then into my stories. Many of the events in my books have happened in my life, and the lessons learned, many the hard way.

You'll find when you read my work, I honor community and honesty and respect. Hard work. Grace. Humour. Beloved pets. It's all in there somewhere. I've been told more than once that when people pick up one of my books, they recognize my voice at once. I'm hoping this is a good thing!! LOL!