There are few places in my life that I've found more ruggedly beautiful than the Highlands of Scotland. The place is magical - it's so far north, so remote, that sometimes it feels like you've left this world and gone to another.

Scotland is so gorgeous that every time I'm there, I start to dream of living there. I want to buy one of those whitewashed cottages with the thatch roofs and gaze out at the sea and read my books. I want to be away from the Internet and the news and lawn mowers at 7 A.M. on Sunday mornings.

There's not much about me that readers don't know because I am equal parts open and boring. If there is one thing readers do know about me, it's that I am very un-domestic.

I have someone else clean my house so that it will actually get cleaned, and I let kids in my house survive on Peeps and 'SpongeBob.'

My characters are all made up of pieces of people I have known, their backstories pieces of mine.

One of the things that interests me about the Regency period is how women began to stir under the thumbs of men, wanting more and bigger freedoms.