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What's the story behind the story? What inspired you to write this book?

Why I wrote this story is a little bit of a crazy story itself. It was summer. Our garden failed. I had nothing to “can,” as in canning and freezing our home-grown vegetables. I love food storage preparation. So I decided to focus on my writing. I had an idea for a story. It came out of nowhere. I sat down to write it, a short, twenty-five- to thirty-thousand-word story for a reader magnet. It would be my first. Well, by the end of September, the end of summer, and a few weeks into October, I had written five manuscripts… a series. Here, I seriously looked at myself in the mirror and complained… sort of. “Why can’t you write just one book? Why does it always become some kind of series?”

But these five stories were so much fun to write that I could not stop! Not my first lighthearted story, but my first series of lighthearted stories with some series love and romance going on at the same time. So I forgave myself for writing a series instead of one story and began the literal hard work of rewriting, editing, and polishing the stories to get them ready for romance lovers everywhere.

That is the backstory of taking a small idea into a lot of fun and hard work. I hope romance readers everywhere love DeAnna’s Do or Die, the first of a five-book series of second-chance romance in the Lowcountry of South Carolina.

If you had to pick theme songs for the main characters of your book, what would they be?

Rod Stewart’s "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You."

What's your favorite genre to read? Is it the same as your favorite genre to write?

Clean, contemporary Romance.

What books are on your TBR pile right now?

Oh my! My TBR? From the bottom or the top? Let me see. Christmas romances, about five, with the top of the pile being Tess Thompson’s Unexpected Gifts, and non-Christmas, Liz Isaacson’s Fourth and Long.

What scene in your book was your favorite to write?

My favorite scene to write was the last scene in book #5.

Do you have any quirky writing habits? (lucky mugs, cats on laps, etc.)

I love to get up early in the morning between 3:00 am and 6:00 am while everything is quiet before everything gets un-quiet. I love to start writing with hot coffee and a breakfast banana. Strange combination, but it works for me.

Do you have a motto, quote or philosophy you live by?

I’ve always told my children to always do their very best at anything they do. When you do, that will be good enough for me. If you think it’s not good enough for you, think how you can do it better. It’s not perfectionism; it’s growth. That’s my philosophy.

If you could choose one thing for readers to remember after reading your book, what would it be?

To always forgive and always, always remember the love.