Dear friends,
Confession: I am much more comfortable hiding behind my characters than talking about myself.
Fortunately (or unfortunately!), my mastermind partners are not having that.
They sat me down and asked the questions they said readers want answers to: what finally pushed me to finish The Gilded Talisman and The Roses of Ainsworth Manor, why so many of you are obsessed with Alexander, what I hope these stories change in your life, and what it’s like to write “luxurious romantic suspense.”
Here is that interview. Part craft talk, part love letter, part behind-the-scenes peek.
Let’s dive in.
Q: You’ve joked that you’re “the world’s greatest quitter,” yet you finished and published two novels. What finally tipped you from quitting to completing?
For most of my life, I treated my writing like a hobby I could abandon whenever I got busy, or writing got uncomfortable. I finished degrees and jobs and responsibilities for other people, but my dreams? Those I walked away from over and over. Finishing two novels was the moment I decided that writing was no longer optional “extra credit.” It was the life I was choosing.
What tipped it was grief and clarity arriving together. Life got very real, very quickly, and I realized I couldn’t keep waiting for the “right” season, I needed to just get it done. I wanted to look at a finished novel and say: I stayed. I saw it through. These books are proof to myself that I can hold a long, difficult, beautiful thread from beginning to end.
Was there a moment, working on The Gilded Talisman or The Roses of Ainsworth Manor, when you thought, This is impossible? What kept you going anyway?
There were many. The Gilded Talisman actually started as a fun travel blog about my own adventures. Friends read it and said, “I want to know what she does next,” which I thought was funny, because I had realized writing the first entry that there was no way I was going to continue writing about my life for all the world to see. So I decided to turn the real-life adventures into a novel. Somewhere around 20,000 words, when all the threads of the story—history, family secrets, romance, suspense—had to weave together, I remember thinking, “Who do you think you are, trying to do all this in one book?”
What kept me going was a combination of habit, stubbornness, and devotion to the characters. As an artist, I already knew what it was to push through the ugly middle of a painting, and that muscle helped. At 40,000 words, I cared too much about Maren and Alexander to leave them stranded in the middle of their story, and I created a private agreement with myself: this time, you don’t disappear when the writing gets difficult.
People sometimes say, “But you’ve been an army officer and a portrait artist. You obviously don’t just quit when things get hard.” The funny thing is that writing a novel exposes you in a way I did not expect, and never felt exposed in any other job. A portrait is of someone else. A military role has a clear structure and mission. In fiction, there is so much of me in these characters. My questions, my longings, my imaginings. Their thoughts are theirs, but they’re also mine, which makes staying the course both harder and more necessary.
What did you underestimate most about writing and publishing a novel, and what surprised you in a good way?
I underestimated how emotional the process of publishing would be. Writing is solitary. Day after day of plugging away alone; publishing is exposure. I didn’t realize how vulnerable it would feel to put something I love into an algorithmic marketplace that can bury it without a second thought. I also underestimated how technically complex it would be. There was a crazy amount to learn and figure out just to get the book into readers’ hands.
What surprised me in a good way was the intimacy with readers. People wrote with very personal messages about grief, love, and their own reinventions. I did not expect that. But connection with readers makes the vulnerability (and even the spreadsheets) worth it.
For readers new to your work, how would you describe The Gilded Talisman in one or two sentences?
The Gilded Talisman is an elegant romantic suspense about an art restorer, a cursed Ottoman jewel, and a formidable man whose loyalty is as dangerous as the enemies they face. It’s a novel meant to feel like slipping into a Dior gown on the Orient Express: beauty, tension, and love all threaded through a larger mystery and love story.
You’ve said you wanted the book to feel like “luxurious, atmospheric romantic suspense.” What kinds of readers did you have in mind as you wrote? Who did you secretly hope would fall in love with it?
I write the books I like to read but can’t find anymore. By the way, if anyone is thinking about writing a book, do it. That is a great reason. Just write what you would love to read yourself. I wrote it for readers like me who grew up on Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart, and Phyllis A. Whitney. This book is modern, but equally emotionally honest. My secret hope was to reach people, mostly women, who are a little tired of chaotic relationships and want to see a love story where manners and stability in a man are sexy.
I wanted the book to be for readers who crave glamour, travel, and lots of beautiful details, but who also want depth: grief handled seriously, faith and doubt, loyalty, moral choices, and a heroine who comes into her own power without losing her softness.
Is there a scene in The Gilded Talisman that still makes you emotional when you think about it? Why that one?
Oh gosh yes. There are several that I can’t give away in case someone reading this hasn’t read the book yet. But one scene I love is on the train when Maren wakes and sees Alexander sitting in the armchair, reading with his glasses on and bourbon in hand, watching over her in the fading light. That one still gets me. It’s not a big, dramatic moment, but it’s the emotional truth of the book: devotion expressed as presence, not grand declarations.
I love that she realizes as she watches him that she might be falling in love with a man whose real name she doesn’t even know yet. It’s tenderness and danger in one frame. That’s the heart of the whole book in a single scene. And I think most of us, secretly, want to love and be loved like that.
Alexander and Maren’s relationship is built on respect as much as passion. What do you hope readers take away about love from watching them?
I hope readers feel that real love can be both passionate and deeply safe. Love doesn’t have to be chaotic to be intense. Maren and Alexander argue, misunderstand each other, and face real danger, but underneath, there is this constant: he shows up, she grows, and they each choose the other again and again.
If there is a message, it’s that you are allowed to want a love that protects you as much as it awakens your heart.
Readers are obsessed with Alexander and often say, “I don’t know what it is, but I want some of that Alexander-ness for myself.” What do you think is at the core of his magnetism?
At the core of Alexander’s magnetism is that he is not available to everyone, but he is available to the few he chooses. He does not chase attention. His power comes from composure, competence, and self-possession.
People sense that he lives by an inner compass, not by other people’s approval. He’s a man with edges, history, and loyalties that predate you, but when he chooses you, he folds you into his world completely. That combination of mystery and unwavering commitment is very compelling.
You’ve talked about Alexander as a “magnetic modern gentleman” who lives inside a self-created code. What parts of that code do you personally find most aspirational?
I find it aspirational that he refuses to let anyone or anything own him. Not his temper, not his desires, not his past, not other people’s expectations. He feels intensely, but he doesn’t let his temporary emotions drive the car.
I also admire his commitment to do difficult, unglamorous things well: having hard conversations, standing between someone and danger, honoring promises even when they cost him. Those are not Instagrammable virtues, but they’re the ones that make a human being profoundly trustworthy. And a man very, very attractive.
If a woman wanted to live like Alexander, same composure, same boundaries, what would that look like in her day-to-day life?
It would look like a woman who moves more slowly than the culture insists we do. She would answer calls and texts when she’s ready. She’d say no warmly, but without apology. Her life would be graceful, and she wouldn’t explain herself to people who hadn’t earned that intimacy.
Internally, she would have a few non-negotiables, like how she treats herself every day, how she expects others to treat her who want to be in her circle, and what she will not sacrifice for approval or even love. Externally, people would describe her as calm, and a little bit mysterious. The people closest to her would know she is also fiercely loving and loyal.
How would you introduce The Roses of Ainsworth Manor to someone who just finished The Gilded Talisman and is looking for their next read?
If The Gilded Talisman is about a woman pulled into an international, high-stakes mystery, The Roses of Ainsworth Manor is about a woman rooted in one haunting house. Roses is thick with secrets, inherited wounds, and a love that grows in the shadow of all of it. Also it’s very funny, and there’s a dog.
The book has the same sense of elegance and emotional depth, but the focus happens closer to home: legacy, chosen family, old hurts, an interesting romance that asks, “Can we really begin again?”
What emotional itch does Roses scratch that’s a little different from Talisman, even though both are romantic and atmospheric?
Roses leans more into modern gothic and healing: for all of the characters, it’s about staying long enough in one place, both literal and emotional, to transform it, and themselves. Where Talisman is glamour, and trains and jewels and danger across borders, Roses is about the danger of trust, of letting someone see the parts of your life you’ve meticulously wallpapered over.
Readers who want the feeling of walking through a vast manor at dusk, opening doors that have been shut too long, and finding both ghosts and grace behind them will find that in Roses.
You’ve mentioned loving Victoria Holt, Phyllis A. Whitney, Danielle Steel, Barbara Michaels, Judith Krantz, and Mary Stewart. What did those authors give you that you’re consciously carrying forward into your own work?
Well first, they told a great story, and that is my first priority. They gave me permission to write a slow book. Today all of the advice to writers is to hook and reader and move at breakneck speed. I’m just not into that as a reader. Or, let’s put it this way. I like those books sometimes, but I read to escape and explore and sink into a world the author creates, not go on a rollercoaster ride. Romantic suspense of the past took its time, and those writers built the story as a world. Those writers also take women’s inner lives seriously while giving them couture gowns, castles, glittering parties, and dangerous men. They showed me that you can have atmosphere and glamour and real emotional stakes in the same story.
From them, I’m carrying forward: the sense of place as a character; the idea that romance can coexist with ambition, mystery, and moral complexity; and the insistence that heroines can be feminine, flawed, intelligent, and brave without having to choose one.
What about sex?
(Laughs) Look, I have no problem writing about sex. People have it. It is what it is. The issue I have with contemporary romance novels is that, basically, it’s boring.
Imagine slamming the breaks on the plot and writing an entire excruciatingly detailed chapter about washing dishes. I mean, who cares? For me the story always comes first. I suppose if graphic, play-by-play descriptions somehow added value to the plot, then okay I’d write them, but I cannot think of a single novel where they do. It is jarring, and ends up hijacking the book. Afterwards, somehow everyone has to get their clothes on and back into the flow of the plot. It’s one thing I’m not crazy about in the books of one of my favorite authors. I find myself thinking, okaaay, got it, now can you get back to the story?
You’re known for elegant dialogue and slow-burn tension. When you sit down to write a scene between Maren and Alexander, what are you paying attention to first: the words, the subtext, or the atmosphere?
Subtext comes first: what each of them is not saying but wants or fears. Then atmosphere: where are they, what are they wearing, what does the light look like, what’s on the table between them. Finally, the words.
With Maren and Alexander especially, so much is said in the subtlety—what hangs in the air after a line, or in the way he stands, or the way she looks away. The dialogue has to feel like the tip of an iceberg. Elegant, controlled, but below the surface there’s history, longing, and danger. As readers come to trust my work, they will understand that not one thing happens, or is said (or not said) randomly. Everything in every scene means something to the story, so you have to pay attention when you’re reading. As a writer, I have a handle on every detail, and my promise to the reader is that I won’t let them down. For me, that is what makes a book by a good writer fun to read.
What is one reader message or comment about The Gilded Talisman that has stayed with you?
A reader wrote to say that she’d been through a very chaotic relationship and had lowered her standards without realizing it. She told me that watching Alexander and Maren’s growth “reset” something in her, and suddenly felt it was not only okay but necessary to want a love that was honorable.
That message made me cry. If a story can alter even one person’s sense of what is possible in life and acceptable in love, that feels like holy ground.
One reviewer said the book motivated them to take better care of the relationships that are important to them, which is just about the highest compliment I can imagine, if the story made them look up from the pages and think, ‘Who do I need to cherish more intentionally?’
I’ve also been surprised in the best way by how many men have read The Gilded Talisman and loved it. Several have written to say they see parts of themselves in Alexander, or that the book made them think differently about how they show up in love and loyalty. That wasn’t something I expected, and it means a great deal.
What do you hope a reader feels in their body as they read your books—what kind of escape or transformation are you trying to offer?
I want readers to feel both soothed and electrified. Soothed by the sense of being in capable hands in a beautiful world with Paris hotels, luxurious trains, manor houses, and couture Dior, and electrified by the emotional honesty and suspense: heart racing a little, breath catching, tears prickling at unexpected moments.
On a deeper level, I hope they finish feeling more protective of their own hearts, more interested in elegance (inside and out), and more convinced that they are allowed to want both safety and passion in the same relationship.
If your reader community could walk away with one change in how they see themselves or love, after reading your work and doing the Alexander workshop on Substack, what would you want that to be?
I would love for them to walk away with a very solid conviction: I am allowed to build a life and relationships that are deliberate, beautiful, and whole. Not reactive, not apologetic, not dictated by algorithm or mayhem, but chosen. If my characters can step into that, then maybe the stories can help readers design their own version: a self-created life with elegance, boundaries, and a brave, steady heart at the center.