Hi, I’m Carrie.

I grew up on a turkey farm, working side by side with my dad. Every year we raised about three thousand birds for Thanksgiving, and I was his designated son: driving tractors, hauling feed, and helping manage the flock. Baby turkeys, called poults, look like fluffballs with heads. When they were older they ranged free, and for a while they hid under rows of sunflowers we planted for cover. I was a tomboy through and through, who somehow also made time for ballet. If you've ever wondered where the rural heart in my small-town romances comes from, that's it.

My love of stories came from my mom. She instilled in me a passion for reading and writing, and it became the thing we shared, because she was an author herself, with stories and a whole series of novels of her own. Then MS took that passion from her, and she never got to see her books published. I've been writing since sixth grade, finished my first novels in high school and college, and a few of the books I'm sharing now were born back then. Every book I put into the world carries a little of her with it, and my hope is to bring her novels into the world too, so other readers can love them the way our family does.

I've always been a creative at heart, from music to a few theater classes in college, and my tastes have always been eclectic: in books, music, movies, and whatever hobby has caught my attention lately. My reading runs from Mary Stewart's Arthurian novels and Phyllis A. Whitney's suspense to Patricia Briggs and Laurell K. Hamilton, Pern, Terry Brooks, Brandon Sanderson, the Locked Tomb, and yes, The Cat Who. So it probably won't surprise you that I write in more than one world. Right now that's gritty paranormal and urban fantasy and warm small-town romance, with more genres waiting their turn.

What ties it all together is the thing closest to my heart: the authentic self. Some of us know who we are from the very start and have to fight to be it. Some of us discover it along the way and have to make room for who we're becoming. Either way, my characters get to be who they truly are and love who they truly love, whatever the world says they should be. And they tend to fall in love the way I believe in most: slowly, once the trust is real.

When I'm not writing, I'm a licensed massage therapist and the founder of Body Balance Therapeutic Massage, where I've spent every year since 2010 helping people get back to the lives they love. My spouse and I met in college playing live-action role-playing games with the Camarilla, a national World of Darkness club, so vampires and werewolves have been part of our story from the very beginning. Home is out in the woods near Blacksburg, in the heart of Hokie Nation, with our two active, outdoorsy boys (deep into Scouting America and always up to something), a dog, a cat, and a long list of homestead-light dreams. When we can, we're out hiking somewhere in Virginia. The favorite trail depends on the season.