No, I use the name I was born with. I didn't change my name when I got married, so I figured I wouldn't do it for a publisher, either.

I am a teacher for the New York city Board of Education. Presently, I teach kindergarten.

Growing up I wanted to be two things, a teacher and a writer. I have both my dream jobs.

I have no idea. I'm an incredibly fickle reader. Usually, if I'm reading something good, that's my favorite book--until the next one comes along.

Oy! I lead an incredibly boring life. I am happily married to my husband of ten-plus years. I have two beautiful children, Nicholas, 11 and Francesca, 9. We just moved to a bigger place so we are still trying to get settled by the time school starts.

As far as my writing goes, I try to present love stories in the truest way I know how. Of course, what I write is romance, so a little fantasy is part of the mix. But I try to stay real where emotions are concerned--how real

people react to difficult situations and come out on the side of love. I also love to throw a bit of humor in for good measure. I can't help that.  According to my mother, she saw the movie Psycho when she was eight months pregnant with me and it warped my brain in utero. My husband swears she must have dropped me on my head a few times and is trying to cover it up.

I actually started writing my first novel when I was sixteen years old. When I'd finished a draft of it, I thought is was the worst drivel ever written. My manuscript spent a good five years in a drawer before I picked it up again. Every now and again, I would take it out and do a little work on it, but I still thought the literary police would come and arrest me if I ever showed it to anyone. The years passed, I got married. One night when I was working on the story for the umpteenth time, my husband, in great frustration after seeing me work on this book so long, said, "If you don't hurry up and finish that thing and send it to a publisher, I'm throwing it in the garbage.

Now, I knew this was an idle threat, since my husband never throws ANYTHING out. But I started to question when I would ever be satisfied with this manuscript. I gave it one last going over and sent it to BET/Arabesque.

Surprise, surprise--they wanted it. The rest, as they say, is history.

• SPELLBOUND - December 1999

• ALWAYS - October 2000

• ONCE AND AGAIN - May 2001

• MIDNIGHT MAGIC - October 2001

• HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO - September 2002

SPELLBOUND and HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO are linked. Always, Once and Again and Midnight Magic are part of my Thorne family saga. The fourth book, NOT THE ONE, which tells Nina Ward's story (yes, she will be matched with the delectable doctor, Matthew Peterson) will be published in November 2003.

COULD IT BE MAGIC? will be published in May 2003. I will also have a story, "Fairy Godmother", in the 2003 hardcover Mother's Day Anthology, To Mom with Love, that will be out in April.

HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO is probably the novel I am most proud of, as it was the most difficult to finish. I had written a chapter or two of the story when the events of September 11 occurred. For a long time, I couldn't write one word, convinced that my little love story mattered not at all in the light of the tragic events happening in my own city and around the world. It was readers who brought me back to writing. They wrote to me to tell me how much they enjoyed reading my books, especially at a time like that when they needed something to take their minds of the news of the day. It proved to me the value of romance, or any fiction for that matter--its ability to transport the reader to a different reality where they can immerse themselves in the lives of others.

Anyhow, HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO is the story of Hollywood actress Samantha Hathaway and NYPD cop Adam Wexler. Samantha is injured in the suspicious car accident that kills her former fiancee, Billy Prescott. Billy is also Adam's brother. Under the guise of helping her to prepare for a movie role as a female police officer, Adam comes to L.A. to investigate his brother's death.

For Sam and Adam it is hate at first sight. Each has jumped to conclusions about the other, conclusions they don't like. But as the case plays out, Sam and Adam find themselves drawn together, first by a mutual attraction, then a mutual caring, then love.

Once I got into it, I had so much fun writing this story. For those who have read Spellbound, they will find out the answers to burning questions like: Do Ariel's girls' eyes stay brown or turn green? What did Ariel have (she was pregnant at the end of Spellbound)? and who will be the next victim of Charlie's deadly brew?

Two things inspired Holding Out for a Hero. First, ever since Spellbound came out, readers have been asking me for a sequel to find out what happened with Ariel and Jarad. Second, my fellow Bronxites kept asking me when I was going to write a story about one of us. I knew if there was a second story, it would have to focus on Samantha, Jarad's best friend. Readers remembered her and wanted to read her story. In Spellbound, Samantha had just broken her engagement to Billy Prescott, but I knew he wasn't hero material. I had wanted to try my hand at a little suspense, so I thought maybe Billy could die suspiciously and a New York (translated Bronx) cop could some how end up investigating what happened. How to make a cop from the East Coast care what happened to some actor on the other? Make them brothers. Thus my story was born.

Not at all. I would have to say that Samantha is the heroine least like me of all that I've written. Sam, despite outward appearances, has had a hard life. I have been blessed in too many ways to count. Also, she's a vegetarian. Ugh! The only thing we share is a mortal terror of guns and the belief that ordinary citizens shouldn't have them.

As for Adam, I don't know where he came from. He jumped into my head fully formed and demanded to have his story told. The only line he speaks that I borrowed from someone is when he says, "Gun control is hitting what you aim at." A male cousin said this to me while he was trying unsuccessfully to convince me that guns didn't kill people, people killed people.

I want readers to take a way a sense of hope in the future, that even in the most dire of circumstances, you can rise above and overcome--if you have the courage to forge ahead.

Here are the places I'll be, so far:

• Saturday, September 14, Green Acres Mall, Valley Stream, NY. 2-4 pm, (516) 561-0077.

• Thursday, September 19, Barnes and Noble, Bay Plaza, Bronx, NY. 7:30-9:30, (718) 862-3945.

• Saturday, September 21, Waldenbooks, Cross County, Yonkers, NY. 2-4 pm, (914) 476-6900.

• Saturday, September 28, Bronx Book Place, Bronx, NY. 2-4 pm, (718) 295-7000.

• Saturday, October 5, Dygnyti Books, Hamden, Connecticut. 2-4 pm, (203) 863-8819.

• Saturday, October 12, B. Dalton, 9th and Market, Philadelphia, PA. 1-3 pm, October 23-27.

• Romantic Times Convention, Denver, Colorado.

Persevere. I have always said that the major difference between those who get published and those who don't is that the published authors finish the book. You can't sell what you don't have. Another word of advice for aspiring authors is to learn the craft of writing. You wouldn't expect to be a great surgeon without going to medical school first, would you? Yet many aspiring authors feel they should be able to sit at a keyboard and produce fabulous prose and become disappointed in their writing when they can't. You may not need to pay your dues at the publishers in the form of multiple rejections, but you do need to pay your dues at the keyboard, polishing your work until it is the best you can produce.

I always love to hear from readers. My e-mail address is deesavoy@aol.com. My snail mail address is P.O. Box 233, Bronx, NY 10469.

Thank you Wayne for allowing my this time to "meet" with readers. I consider it a great honor to be chosen as your author of the month. Continued blessings for you and the folks at Romance in Color.