When she retired after too many years in journalism, Lillian Marek felt a longing for happy endings and stories where the good guys win and the bad guys get their just deserts. Having exhausted her library’s supply of non-gory mystery stories, she started reading romance novels, especially his- torical romance. This was so much fun that she thought she’d like to try her hand at writing one. So at the age of 70 she took her computer keyboard in hand, slipped back into the 19th century, and began. She was right—writing romance novels is as much fun as reading them.