I was born in  Encino,  California and lived there for the first five years of my life, until  my dad  decided to trade in the city smog for some country fresh air.

 My Pa said,  "Ma, we  gotta move away from here". Said, "The great Northwest is the place we  oughta  be," so he loaded up the truck and we moved to Oh-ree-gun.  State that is.   Puddles the size of swimmin' pools.   Movie stars.  At the local picture show.

After several years of  moving around the  state, looking for the perfect piece of farmland, my dad eventually found  paradise in the beautiful, Silverton hills, (just outside the state's capitol Salem, Oregon) and settled down.  There, he enthusiastically began his hobby of becoming a gentleman farmer by purchasing three head of cattle.  These fine animals would feed the family some day, he reasoned.  

Unfortunately, the cattle became more like giant pet dogs and he never mustered the heart to butcher them.  The story was the same with the two sheep.  Our country menagerie was completed by an assortment of cats and dogs, not to mention the horses and chickens that would wander over to visit from the neighbors place. 

Thus began my own  love of country living.  After graduating from  Silverton Union high school, I attended college at Oregon State
University,  where I majored in Theater Arts with a minor in beer, until I realized that my  chance of ever earning a living in the
theater was slim to none.  So, I changed  my major to Broadcast/Speech communications and headed for a career in the  highly competitive field of television.

Luckily, I did not  know this at the time.  While in college, I  met my future husband, Matt, in the unlikely romantic atmosphere of
the student  cafeteria’s dish room.  I admired the way he slaved over the mountains of dirty  dishes, earning his way through college.  For me, it was  love at first sight of  his bulging biceps.   Matt and I were  married in our sophomore year and after we graduated from OSU, we moved to Portland, Oregon, where Matt began his career in the hotel industry and I began life as a waitress.  And though the jobs in television were practically non-existent in Portland back when I graduated, I was not daunted.  After several years doing odd jobs and hounding the local television companies, I eventually landed a job producing local television commercials.  Matt is now the  Director of Sales and Marketing for the Oregon Convention Center.

As we were working our  way up the corporate ladder, Matt and I bought a house in Portland, completely  remodeled it, and there discovered our mutual love for knocking down walls,  pounding nails and going into debt.

Back when we were  first married, we agreed to put off starting a family until we had graduated  from college, traveled a little, bought and sold several houses, built our  careers and any other reason we could dredge up for not jumping into parenthood.  But, finally we ran out of excuses for not having that baby, and on July 22nd, the day of our wedding anniversary, we welcomed our first daughter 
into our family.  Four years later, we welcomed her younger sister.  
 
And then,  just when we thought it was safe to go back into the water—four years later—a  gift dropped out of heaven and into our laps
as our first son, and our first  experience with adoption. 

Well, wouldn’t you  know it?  Kid’s are like potato chips, we couldn’t seem to have  just one—or three—and so we adopted again, this time an adorable boy and girl sibling set.

Many of you have  wondered why I haven’t had a book out lately, and by golly, I haven’t got a  clue.  It’s all a happy blur of everything from diapers to min-vans and soccer  balls, and it seems as if over night, we were the proud parents of everything  from a pre-schooler to a teenager.

And my writing career? 

To backtrack a bit, in  January of 1992, as part of my New Years Resolution, I began writing my  first  novel.  Longhand.  On a legal pad.  Didn’t have a computer yet.  After completing “The Wife Next Door” in March of 1993, I was fortunate to sell this book to  Silhouette Books, a division of Harlequin Enterprises, Worldwide.  In the years that followed, I began writing under the
pseudonyms of Carolyn Zane and Suzy Pizzuti.  To date, I have written and sold over thirty five books to a number of publishers and have several million books in print around the world.

Writing is a  wonderful  career for a mom, but even the heartiest soul needs an occasional maternity  break, so I took one.  A long one.  But after several years in the baby zone, I  was itching to get back at it, and started to write again.  The kids are all in school now, and yippee, I have time, lots of wonderful, fabulous quiet time.  

And now?  I'm so excited to announce that I have just  completed a novel for Abingdon Press entitled
BEYOND THE STORM.
The story is ripped from the headlines and takes a small town through an average day until an EF5 tornado touches down and turns the comunity upside down.  As details come in, I'll be posting them here, so stay tuned!

Over the years, my  husband and I have found yet another wonderful relic of a farmhouse that needed  our love and attention.  This house was out in the country on an acre and a half  of land in the beautiful rolling hills along Portland’s Willamette River.   Perfect for raising five energetic children.  Luckily for me, there is no room  on this property for cattle or sheep and the closest thing to a horse is my  loveable golden retriever—and  writing partner—Mr. ‘Thurston’ Howl the  4th.

My life thus far, has  had its ups and down.  Many more ups than downs, I’m happy to report and for  that, I am truly grateful to God.  It is to Him I owe all praise and thanks for  anything I’ve managed to accomplish; for, left to my own devices;  I’d still be  sporting a lampshade and wandering dazedly around the OSU quad…Thank you, Lord  Jesus, my dearest friend in good times and bad.  I love 
You.

Carolyn