Christine DeVault (aka Christine DeVault Mendes) was born in 1945 in Pasadena, California. She attended Pasadena High School, UC Berkeley, and Cal State L.A. After many years of teaching in schools from East L.A. to Santa Cruz, she was lured into writing by her husband Bryan Strong. She has authored or co-authored numerous educational books, among them "The Marriage & Family Experience" (Cengage) and "Human Sexuality" (McGraw Hill), both with Bryan. These texts are in their 11th and 7th editions respectively and widely used in colleges and universities across the country. Bryan and Christine also wrote a meticlously researched novel based on the encounter between Christopher Columbus and the Taino people of Hispaniola. Its completion was forestalled by Bryan's death from cancer 1996. In 1999, she published "The Cartoon Guide to Sex" with irrespressibly irreverent cartoonist Larry Gonick. Christine has a bunch of kids and grandkids in California. She currently lives on the Big Island of Hawai'i where she farms coffee and tropical fruit with her husband Milt Mendes. She still has couple of books up her sleeve--"magical-historical" mystery novels with the working titles "Playa del Sol" and "Tears for Borinquen."