Except for the first year of her life, Robyn Echols has lived in California. She started her young life in San Diego and has had gradually moved northward. She has been writing since she was in junior high school. By choice, she spent most of her evening hours in her "dungeon," as her mother called her downstairs bedroom. There she wrote stories, only joining her family in front of the television upstairs when her favorite programs were playing.After working several jobs, including that of being a rural carrier and union steward for the California Rural Letter Carriers' Association, Robyn has spent years learning and teaching family history topics. She enjoys focusing on history from a genealogist's perspective by seeking out the details of everyday life in the past. Several of her family history articles have been published in genealogy magazines.In addition to her short humorous offerings to entertain her readers, Robyn has fun researching and writing historical novels. That has led to her incorporating her love of history into her New Adult novels in the Aurora series written under Robyn Echols.Her adult Golden Oaks series and her Trails and Rails series are published under the pen name of ZINA ABBOTT.Robyn resides with her husband in California near the "Gateway to Yosemite." When she is not piecing together novel plots and characters, she enjoys piecing together quilt blocks.