The Maidservant in Cabin Number One follows a young woman trying to begin life anew as she puts the trials of her past life behind her and seeks employment as a maid in the tranquility of the mountains. Why choose this place and time for the setting of the story?

We had a cabin in the Lake Arrowhead mountains, and when I retired, I decided to fulfill my lifetime dream of writing novels. I read a story about an unsolved murder in one of the small towns up there, and it gave me the idea for the first book, The Man in Cabin Number Five.

My character, Annie Parker is turning eighty, and she wants to write about when she came up to the mountains to start over. She buys a series of 1920s cabins and discovers each one has a story to tell.

Are there any emotions or memories from your own life that you put into your characters’ lives?

Absolutely. I think everyone who writes, writes about memories, both good and bad, and then when you run out of those stories, you have to start making things up! For example, while I didn’t move up to the mountains after my divorce, I used that as the basis of book one, and carried the theme of starting over into each of the books.

Can fans of the The Guest Book series look forward to a fifth installment soon? If so, where will it take readers?

Absolutely! The Maidservant in Cabin Number One is really the beginning of the story; the history of the cabins before Annie bought them. And coming soon, Book Five, (of what was originally intended to be a trilogy) is the story of Annie until she turns eighty and decides to begin writing. It’ll be called Dear Noah.

Readers have asked if the series can be read as stand-alones, and, yes, they can. But for those who love this series, if you haven’t started reading yet, I’d begin with Book Four, The Beginning (The Maidservant) then go to The Man in Cabin Number Five, then The Girls in Cabin Number Three followed by The Starlet in Cabin Number Seven, and then finish it off with Book Five, Dear Noah.

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