I became a writer because I love the sound and texture of words (current favorite consonant sounds: Ls and hard Cs) and love to hear what happens when they bump up against each other. I was a poet for a long time (my first book is a collection of poetry called FROM THE BONES OUT), and then, one day, unexpectedly, I found that I had a voice inside my head. As you might imagine, this was a bit alarming. However, in time, I discovered that the voice belonged to a character named Cornelia Brown, so I wrote a novel called LOVE WALKED IN about her and an eleven-year old girl named Clare. After that, I became addicted to writing novels. I wrote a second one called BELONG TO ME, and my third, FALLING TOGETHER, came out on October 4th, 2011. I'm now working on a fourth, tentatively titled THE PRECIOUS ONE. I live with my husband, children's book author David Teague, and our two kids, Charles and Annabel, in lovely Wilmington, Delaware, home of Vice President Biden and tax-free shopping.