Dear Readers,

I very much appreciate you stopping by. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a new release for a while, so I do appreciate your interest. These last few years have been a tough time for me and for my family. In the fall of 2016, I came forward about historic sexual abuse I suffered. The abuse began when I was 11 and happened over many years.

Coming forward has been a long and difficult process, and has been years in the making. It has literally taken me decades to get the courage to get to this point. Life was thrown into a bit of a tailspin. I found I was unable to write romance, especially sensual romance. Not writing made it impossible to present new proposals or to indie publish. At the same time that I had been writing, I was also working for an engineering firm, but that work disappeared. My writing career was on hold as emotionally I was not in the head space to write fiction, and I needed to find a job. I took up a job search, sending out resumes, which is a tough writing task when you haven’t done it for a long time.

My friends, my husband, and my children have been very supportive. Without the advice of very wise friends, this road would have been much harder to travel. I was directed to the amazing people who work with organizations that do so much to help victims of abuse. My eyes were opened as to the help that is available out there, help that comes with support and understanding. The authorities picked up my case and it is now moving through the legal system, which is an on-going process.

In early spring of this year, I found I could write again. Writing about my heroines helped me find courage. By no longer being silent, I felt afraid. But in my books, my heroines face risk and fear. They go through the crucible of fire, they struggle and fight and think—and they emerge stronger. I wanted to be like my heroines. I saw how much writing romance matters to me and how it makes me stronger.

On writing The Girl Who Seduced an Earl:

This book had a long journey. I began it in 2011 as a proposal. I came close to selling it, but with the uncertainty in publishing, it didn’t go ahead. I sold other books (the Wicked Dukes series, An American Duchess) but I wanted to finish the book and indie publish. I decided to serialize the story so I could write a bigger book and to ensure I didn’t run afoul of my options at the time.

Finding the time was hard. I wrote a large chunk of the story in one month in 2013 (to see if I could). But there was a lot of editing I needed to do after writing so fast. My plan was to try fast drafting and see how it worked. It sort of did :).

Over the next few years, I carved out small amounts of time to work on the story but found writing difficult, so it got set aside. I was thrilled to finally finish Emma and Dorian’s story late this spring. I do hope you enjoy it.

With many thanks,
Sharon