She got started writing about wildfires because of a personal encounter with one. “A wildfire came [close to our cabin in Arizona] and we were watching it from our front porch,” Cathy said. “That gave me the original idea for the first book I did … about hotshots. … That was a subject that was personal for me.”

“I wrote [my hero in Critical Alliance] into the first two books, but I didn’t really know who he was or what he was doing exactly,” Elizabeth said. “I really left him as an enigma—and even the other characters in the book were like, what is he doing and where is he going. I answered those questions in book three.”
“I wish I was that clever that I could have it all plotted out beforehand,” Virginia said. “That’s my goal one day—to know all of my characters before I start my series.”

“I’ve seen time slip done a couple of different ways, like when the characters are tied together by an event or an article in history,” Jaime said. “With my characters—whether they know it or not—the past is directly influencing the life of the current heroine. So you can’t separate the past heroine from the current heroine because the current day heroine wouldn’t be who they are.”

“We see enough of the other kind of stories where the bad guy doesn’t get his in the end,” Robin said. “I like what they call whole stories, where good is good and bad is bad and good wins. I like to write whole stories.”

“We live in a very fallen world, and it’s nice to get away from the reality that evil doesn’t always get punished right now,” Mary said. “It’s good to have books where the hero and heroine have everything worked out in the end, the bad guy gets punished and there’s usually a happily ever after at the end of the story.”