About the Author

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I was born in 1958 in Santiago, Chile. My father was a foreign service officer, and my three siblings and I spent our childhood in South America as part of the expat communities in Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia and Guatemala.  In 1969 we returned to the U.S., to Fairfax, Virginia.  I went to high school in Northern Virginia, where we were largely insulated from the social and cultural upheaval of the time - the end of the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Women's Movement.  I was accepted at the University of Virginia - one of my greatest sources of pride - where I received a Bachelor's Degree with Distinction in International Relations.  Mr. Jefferson's University had gone coed only a few years before, and it was a heady time to be a young woman in America.  My life-long friendships were formed with my Alpha Delta Pi sorority sisters and my classmates. 

After graduation, I began my career in international finance.  I started at a bank in Washington, D.C., then spent a year in Venezuela working as a financial analyst before moving to New York in 1983. After two exciting years in the "City that Never Sleeps," I moved to Miami.  The "Magic City" was just coming to life, and my life and career grew along with it.

In 1989 I met my husband, Eric, with whom I had two daughters.  Our firstborn, Casey, is our biological child.  She is strong and confident, like her Dad, and inherited her love of books and language from me.  Our youngest, Sasha, is adopted from Belarus.  She is quiet but fearless and has an uncanny intuition about people.  She acquired some good - and bad - traits from me and her Dad, but mostly she is her own person.  Having both a biological child and an adopted child is an amazing gift, kind of like getting to have both chocolate and vanilla. I have been blessed to see myself reflected in one daughter's face, and in the both daughters' hearts. 

For most of my adult life I juggled a career, a marriage and a family.  Sometimes it was, as they say, all joy and no fun.  But I got to be part of my girls' lives and still have the satisfaction of a successful career.  Two years ago things changed dramatically when my husband and I made the decision to divorce.  There were some rocky times but I am happily settled into a new life.  Both of my girls are in college, pursuing their own lives, and my ex and I have a good relationship.  Now it's time for me - to write, to travel (once COVID-19 permits) and to enjoy the next stage of my life.