Welcome to my front porch web wanderers. Have a glass of icy lemonade and sit a spell. Big fish stories are welcome here. If you haven’t got a big fish, I’ll be happy to share one of mine. We’re all family, with trees branching in every direction. Sometimes those branches bend into the swamp--the place where you find the most interesting fish of all.

That brings me to my latest tale, which will be out in Avon trade paperback in 2008. WALTZING WITH ALLIGATORS tells the story of Gracie Lynne Calloway a smalltown Alabama girl who discovers on her twenty-fifth birthday that she's the kidnapped daughter a big dog New England financier. If the discovery of her checkered beginnings aren't enough to make Gracie’s fish swim up river, the enormous fortune she's suddenly burdened with certainly will.

What would you do if a stranger interrupted your birthday celebration and informed you that the folks gathered around your candles didn’t share a drop of your blood? Well, if you were Our Gracie you’d be inclined to shoo the bad news away. But unfortunately, the damage is done—Gracie’s real family gets wind of her good fortune and descends on her like a slew of hungry alligators, turning her quiet comfortable world upside down.

I invite you to join Alabama's unconventional heiress, Gracie Calloway as she gives the alligators a valuable lesson in what's most important in life.

(Read an excerpt from WALTZING WITH ALLIGATORS)