Leslie O'Kane is the author of 25 novels--three mystery series, one women's fiction series, plus a pair of young-adult thrillers. She began writing when her son was a year old, and she realized if she didn't shut down her technical writing business, she would never achieve her dream of writing fiction for a living. She gave herself six years to accomplish the feat and got her first contract two months shy of her deadline. Like her characters, she loves the occasional girls' night out and dutifully follows the old saw: "A glass of wine a day keeps the doctor away." (Which, technically, might be considered a misquote, but should not be.)Most of Leslie's novels are murder mysteries, and she considers the time she was taken hostage in a robbery to be the beginning of her life in crime. In that particular instance, her knack for finding humor--something she readily employs in her writing--nearly got her killed. The robbery occurred at the bar in Boston where she worked as the head-waitress, and she informed a large, bearded young man that he'd missed last call. Minutes later, the man burst back through the doors with a rifle in one hand and a shotgun in the other. Although a couple of her coworkers screamed in terror, Leslie's first thought was: He's taking missing last call WAY too seriously. That observation amused her, and earned her a jab with the business end of the shotgun--which instantly sobered her.Nowadays, Leslie continues to find humor in unusual situations and joy in her writing. She hopes to keep writing well into her well-aged-like-fine-wine years. (And to avoid armed robberies.)