But if you ask her who she is, Jessica will say, "I'm a writer. The rest is all background research."

Now writing full-time from a small farm in eastern Connecticut, Jessica shares her life with her own personal hero, Brian, as well as the corgis, two cats and a handful of young horses, who she claims are investments but never seem to get sold.

As a reader, I cut my teeth on Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt, and had my copy of Jean M. Auel's Valley of the Horses confiscated by my mother when I was ten. Hey, I thought it was a horse book, okay? In later years, I fell for Nora Roberts - to this day I can remember reading Sacred Sins - I was maybe fifteen - and thinking, wow, this is really something. I can see these characters in my head. They're talking to me.

I took creative writing in college, more because the Fine Arts track allowed me to avoid another year of French (not my forte) than because I was drawn to writing. I was a biology geek at heart. Still am. But during grad school, I started writing a romance novel, more to get the voices in my head to shut up than because I really wanted to write a novel.

Then I finished up grad school with a PhD in Genetics, a Patent Agent's registration from the U.S. Patent and Trade Office, and a finished romantic suspense manuscript, and I realized something rather disturbing. I didn't want to take a job in a big Boston law firm as their biotech person. Nor did I want to take an academic track and do a post-doc in a genetics lab. I didn't want to go into industry or drug discovery, either.

I wanted to write.

It wasn't as easy as that, of course. I started writing seriously in 1998 and got The Call from Harlequin Intrigue in the spring of 2002. It was a frustrating process of trial and error, of baby steps and rejections, but I'd found something I loved to do. I loved telling stories, writing romances, putting my characters in difficult situations- often inspired by my six years at the New England Medical Center- and knowing that no matter what happens to them, they're assured a happy ending.

So now I'm blessed to be writing full time. Okay, I write about half the day and edit scientific journal articles the other half the time-- that's the best way I know to keep my finger on the pulse of current science, and it helps pay the bills.

Besides, you never know where a good story idea is going to come from . . .

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