A FAVORITE QUOTE  "The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men." Alice Walker   A Little Bit About Me:  I made my first serious (besides-my-diary) fiction writing attempt at 14 when I shut myself up in my bedroom one summer and obsessively hammered away on a manual typewriter while creating a time travel/pirate novel set in the beloved Caribbean of my youth.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to complete it before it was time to go back to school.  (I couldn't get my head out of the great costume research books.) It was all about the costumes.  The draft of that novel has long since disappeared, but the story is still simmering in me, and I will write it one day soon. I started my reading career with my sister's Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries and moved on to romances with Barbara Cartland, Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer.  I haven't yet found the courage to write a regency, but it's coming.  I know it is.  I can't wait to tackle mysteries as well.  Baby steps, baby steps.  I was born on the wonderful island of Aruba to American parents and lived in Venezuela until my family returned to the United States when I was 12.  I couldn’t fight the global travel bug within, and I joined the U.S. Air Force at 18 to “see the world.”  After 21 wonderful and fulfilling years traveling the world and the birth of one beautiful daughter in romantic Belgium, I pursued my dream of finally getting a college education.  Armed and overeducated, the gypsy in me has taken over once again, and I'm now embarking on a full-time life in a recreational vehicle as I continue to look for new adventures and place settings for my writing. The Wild Rose Press has helped me fulfill a lifelong dream of writing romance novels with the upcoming publication of two of my books, A Sigh of Love for the Champagne Rose Line and Love of My Heart for the Faery Rose Line.  If you want to write, I'm living proof that anyone can get published if they just keep writing and sending it out to publishers and agents.  If you'd rather just relax and read books, then stick with me.  Have I got a story for you! Thanks for stopping by.  I'll see ya on the beach or beside a stream or in the garden.  Feel free to e-mail me at bessmcbride @ gmail.com or friend me at www.myspace.com/bessmcbride   I can be found blogging at RV romance, www.rvromance.com.