Hello to everyone and thanks to Sue for hosting me today. It’s a pleasure to be here. As an author, I’m also a reader and I’ve enjoyed many books over the years. I have some fond memories of reading at various points in my life, most likely because I needed an escape or distraction at the time.

One such time, for whatever reason was a Christmas holiday when I sat down to read Patricia McKillip’s Heir of Sea and Fire which is the second book of her Riddle-master of Hed trilogy. The book was new and I had enjoyed the first book of the series immensely so I was ready to read this new one.

It was a cold time of year even for Alabama where I grew up and so we had a fire crackling in the fireplace most every night. The fire made for a nice setting by…