Katherine O'Neal is the USA Today best-selling author of twelve historical romances. Her 1993 debut novel, The Last Highwayman, earned Romantic Times' honors for Best Sensual Historical Romance, and she is the recipient of the magazine's coveted Career Achievement Award. Dubbed by Affaire de Coeur magazine, "the Queen of Romantic Adventure," Katherine lives for travel and has made extensive research trips to all the glamorous locations where her novels are set. "The spirit of place is very important to my work," she says. "To me, nothing is sexier than travel." Katherine lives in Seattle with her husband, the author and film critic William Arnold, and their four guinea pigs—all of whom have had one of her books dedicated to them. Foreign language editions of Katherine O'Neal's books are available in more than a dozen countries. Her 2008 novel, Just for Her, will be published this year as a Japanese Manga comic.

And it all began rather serendipitously. Long ago, as they say, in another time, when fast food hadn't reached our area and the only shopping was what the feed mill offered, I was reading a book that annoyed me . My husband was lying beside me in bed, watching TV. Turning to him, I sort of petulantly said, "How the hell did this book get published?" "If you think you're so smart," he replied, with one eye still on the TV, "why don't you write a book?" So I did. And very badly. I've since learned how to do, he said, she said, and a great variety of other adverb heavy, sometimes lengthy explanations of why my characters are saying what they're saying, along with finally coming to an understanding of what things like POV means. Point of View for you non-writers}. Although, I still don't fully comprehend why it matters if you switch POV and I cavalierly disregard it as much as possible. So while my technical skills have hopefully improved, what hasn't changed is my great joy in writing. There's as much pleasure today in listening to my characters talk while I type as fast as I can, as there was the first time I put dialogue to paper—in long-hand, then, in my leather bound sketch-book.