Inspired -

As a writer I have had many influential authors who have inspired me in what I enjoy so much - writing.

From the time I can remember books have always been a part of my life. My parents read to me every night as a child - Dr. Seuss (Hop on Pop & ABC) , The Berenstein Bears (The Spooky Old Tree), and the Little Critter books. These are the same books that I read to my kids when they were little.

  As I got older the reading never stopped. I remember there wasn't a birthday or christmas that I didn't receive a book (this is still true). I started to really get into series. They opened up a whole new world for me. It was filled with every eddition of The Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley High.

Then I found mysteries thanks to Christopher Pike and Nancy Drew. I still have every Pike book I read. They are collecting dust, waiting for one of my boys to pick them up - or maybe I will.
I use to spend a week of my summer vacations on my Grandparents farm with my younger sister. There I would sneak up to the third floor room and raid my aunt's stack of books. I spent the entire week on the window seat in their family room reading book after book.

When I got into high school I started to read Pike's Adult novels along with Dean R. Koontz. There were many nights I stayed up all night completely freaked and entralled by the stories they told.

Then after high school I made the transistion into Romance and Historial Romance. Nora Roberts and Johanna Lindsey will always be my favorite authors of all time.

As my boys got older and started doing independent reading on their own, they would tell me about the books they read. They knew how much I read and were always telling me to check out this book or that book. Of course I did. I often read the same series as my sons - Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Hunger Games. From there my love for Young Adult books blew up. I read everything I could get my hands on.

xoxo