As a young girl I remember spending warm summer days and long winter nights with Nancy Drew and Laura Ingalls-Wilder. As the years slipped by the books evolved into romance novels by Kathleen Woodiwiss, LaVyrle Spencer and a host of others.

In 2000 when my husband said I should write one, I took the challenge, and have loved every moment of the journey. To create characters from once upon a time and lead them through a life that ends in happily ever after is such fun. Of course, you have to torture them a little bit along the way, and just like real-life children you often have to clean up after them. But, just like real children, they are worth it.

We live in Minnesota, have three grown sons and the most precious gift ever-a granddaughter, Isabelle. I work as the resource development manager for our local United Way program, am a life-long Elvis fan (yes, I’ve been to Graceland) and love spending Sunday afternoons watching NASCAR with family and friends.

April Simonson hated men—all men. They were cruel, sinful beasts. Her disfigured face was proof. That is until she met Jerek Brinkley. Then, as the revered Sultana explodes, April falls into the dark, muddy waters of the Mississippi River terrified she’ll never see the light of day or the handsome riverboat gambler again.

Jerek Brinkley fought hell and high water to save the northern vixen who’d won his heart with her card tricks, only to fear Allan Pinkerton’s arrival in Memphis might reveal secrets he’s not ready for her to know.

Based on history’s greatest maritime disaster, An April to Remember, sprinkled with real facts and events, revives the Sultana, a Civil War riverboat whose death toll surpassed the Titanic’s, and offers a new twist on what might have happened that fateful night in 1865.