Born and raised not far from Philadelphia, close to her forefathers’ lands, Elizabeth Ayers grew up with a strong sense of heritage. A tomboy, she spent her days on the back of a horse and not always in proper English attire. She knew every creek and pond, swam in plenty, and learned never to let her feet touch the bottom of the pond if she shared the water with ducks.

Her family loved to travel, and she can tell you where she hasn’t been more readily than she can tell you where she has. Before she married, she’d logged thousands of air miles and even lived through an emergency landing in a commercial airliner sans landing gear. She swears it was the noisiest landing ever, but also the smoothest.

As a teen, she moved to a small island in the Atlantic. While living there she met her husband. He swore the minute he saw her he knew he’d marry her. According to Elizabeth, it took her a little longer -- a whole evening of chatting over cheese steaks before she realized she had fallen in love. He was twenty-four and she was seven years younger. The day she turned eighteen, they obtained a marriage license and a few days later they were married. They’d known each other less than five weeks. A year later, the newlyweds moved to Virginia, bought a brand-new house, had two cars in the driveway, and a newborn. It might have sounded exciting, but it was a rather quiet life. She gardened organically and spent most of her days learning new domestic skills.

She and her husband had two girls. They were good readers, beyond the reading level of the books appropriate to their ages, so Elizabeth began to write stories for them. She got serious and decided to publish her children’s stories. A friend’s daughter was a traditionally published romance author, and after a little arm-twisting, she convinced Elizabeth to put aside her children’s stories in favor of more adult fare. Elizabeth at the time said she hated romances because they weren’t real. That author said to write them the way should be.

Unfortunately, Elizabeth’s husband didn’t see her first book published, but he was her cheering squad as she’d begun her writing career. His constant faith in her pushed her forward and kept her writing. His unexpected death forced her to decide if writing was what she really wanted to do. She swears that was the easiest choice she’d ever made, and thousands of readers agree. Life is still quiet in her Antebellum home on her tiny Virginia street. Of course, if things get a little too quiet, the ghosts remind her they lived there first.