CJ credits her passion for writing, to her second grade sweetheart, Steven, a blond haired cutie with dimples, who dumped her for a girl who could swing on the monkey bars. She wrote her first story about love and loss after that tragic episode. A life long reader of all genres of books, CJ lists some of her favorites as Agatha Christie, Laura Ingalls Wilder , Lilian Jackson Braun, Jayne Ann Krentz, Anne McCaffrey, Piers Anthony, Barbara Cartland, James Herriot, Nora Roberts, Frank Peretti, Linda Howard and a dozen other authors that have influenced her.