About The Author

I'm "native by proxy" to Arizona. My mother's family has been here for generations, and the desert is home in my bones. My grandmother was a curandera - a healer who uses plants, herbs and expert knowledge of nature to help restore balanced health. Stories about her and her life in the Tucson area during the early 1900s have fascinated me for years.

I wrote Dragon & Hawk after a field trip with my son's school to Bisbee's Copper Queen Mine, barely a month after I began learning about Wales, its unique language and culture. Our guide mentioned how 300 Welsh miners were brought to the Arizona Territory in 1878-1880 to dig out that mine - by hand. I began to wonder: what was it like for someone to leave one of Earth's wettest, greenest lands and move to the high desert of the lawless West? Why would they stay? Curiousity possessed me. A few years of historical research later, Dragon & Hawk grew into a story of strong Mexican and native women - and little-known (to most Americans, anyway) Welsh immigrants in Arizona's wild Territorial days.
Why Dragon & Hawk? It has to do with totems - the animal representations of personality traits. A Dragon of Wales - a Hawk of the Southwest Desert - fire and air - quite a volatile mix...
The story continues in Celtic Fire, Desert Rain because so much happened in Arizona: interesting and little-known history that is doomed to repeat if we don't pay attention. As one of the real historical figures in Celtic Fire, Desert Rain says, “Everything you do in life is a statement of your politics, even if you don’t do a thing. To stand by while others suffer with no voice is to condone their abuse.” If a little light is shed in an entertaining way, I'm a very happy writer.

These books contain scenes of violence and sexuality and are not recommended for readers under the age of 18.