Like Connor, Alex protected me -and he was the only person I let close enough to do it. Like Connor, Alex could finish my sentences before I did. But unlike Connor, for whom I had ultimately come too late, I was just in time to take care of Alex.

We all have things that come back to haunt us. Some of us just see them more clearly than others.

If God wanted us to act on instinct, we wouldn't have the power of reason.

I don't base my books on my life (thank goodness) and I don't pick the topic first. In fact, the topic picks me - via a question I can't answer as a mom, a wife, a woman, an American. I find myself wondering "What if..." and it blossoms into a whole novel.

You know what the difference is between a dream and a goal?... A plan.

The only monsters I have ever known were men.

The book that made me want to be a writer in the first place was Gone with the Wind - I read it and wanted to create a whole world out of words, too.