Don't ask her how it happened, because Jean Barrett has no idea how she ended up teaching fourth graders for more years than she cares to say. It wasn't supposed to happen that way. She'd known from a tender young age that what she was meant to be was a successful writer. The problem was that the muse in charge of her talent didn't seem to know that.It turned out all right, though. Jean is sure she learned more from her fourth-graders than she ever taught them, and knowledge is good. It helped her to finally win publication and an award-winning career in the romance world she loves.Jean and her husband live in an English-style cottage overlooking Lake Michigan on Wisconsin's scenic Door Peninsula. When not traveling to research her books, she walks daily, tries to keep her bonsai collection alive and the song birds happy at her feeders. Those chores attended to, she settles down each afternoon at her computer, where she writes the kind of books she loves to read: sometimes historical romance, but mostly romantic suspense.