Except for a quick trip back to Kansas last November, I hadn't been out in our camper van since last spring when we went to St. Simons Island on a research trip! Ken and his brother were gone camping for 18 days last summer, but for a while now, we've both been ready to go adventuring again. So yesterday we hit the road! First stop was breakfast at The Vault, a wonderful cafe in Marion, IL, … [Read more...]

The author of Ecclesiastes had it right when he said there is nothing new under the sun. That fact came home to me this past week when my daughter alerted me to a new novel that has a very similar theme to my newest novel, Who Stirs Up the Sea! The heroines in both novels take a DNA test with their book club "just for fun" and discover, to their shock, that they are not who they thought they were! … [Read more...]

Our local Friends of the Library book sale was last week, and Ken and I got there early Thursday night since books were super cheap for Friends members—only $1 for hardcover and 50 cents for paper. But look how long the line already was! After renewing our membership, we got $5 in "library bucks" to spend and came home with a bargain bag full! I was thrilled to find some easy piano books to … [Read more...]

I spent a fabulous Sunday afternoon at the Fox Theater in St. Louis yesterday for one of the season's last showings of Phantom of the Opera. This is now officially a tradition started by my daughter Tobi's sister-in-law when we saw Wicked together three years ago. Tobi and I went with her mother-in-law and sister-in-law and we two mother-daughter duos all had dinner together afterwards. The … [Read more...]

From the time I was eleven years old, I knew I wanted to someday write a book. That someday came true, and this year marks a special anniversary in my writing life. Thirty years ago in 1996, my first novel, A Vow to Cherish, was published by Bethany House Publishers, launching my writing career—one I never dreamed would still be active three decades later! For the first few years, I … [Read more...]