Among my favorite half-dozen topics is the field of Victorian female explorers, the intrepid women who packed up their parasols and petticoats and roamed the world in search of adventure. Some were scientists, some artists, some unabashed curiosity-seekers who simply went out to see what they could see.

The addition of romance in my books or mystery to a historical romance is the sauce, not the goose.

One of the joys of writing historical fiction is the chance to read as much as you like on a pet subject - so much that you could easily bore your friends senseless on the topic.

It sounds ghoulish, but it would have been fascinating to be in Paris in 1789 and watch the revolution begin. I can't even imagine what the energy must have been like that year with all of that change crackling in the air.

Most marriages are a mess, and the children get caught between two bitter, antagonistic parents. My parents stayed married for 27 unhappy years, till their kids were grown, and this was a catastrophe for us.

I have great hopes that we shall love each other all our lives as much as if we had never married at all.

What's at the heart of my faith is a belief that there's a creator. That we're all children of the same God. And that, fundamentally, the relationship you have with your spouse is important and eternal.

I also have a degree in marriage, family and child counseling - I'm a therapist.