Anne McAllister was born in California, spent formative summervacations on the beach near her home and on her grandparents' small ranch inColorado and visiting relatives in Montana. Studying the cowboys, thesurfers and the beach volleyball players, she spent long hours developingher concept of "the perfect hero." One thing she did do, early on, wasdevelop a weakness for lean, dark-haired, handsome lone-wolf type guys. Whenshe finally found one, he was in the university library where she wasworking at the time. It didn't matter. She knew a good man when she saw one.And they've now been sharing "happily ever afters" since then. She says:"Once I had a book with a cover I really loved. And my husband found out whothe artist was and bought me the illustration for my birthday. It wasentirely unexpected and I was thrilled".

Before she started writing romances, Anne taught Spanish, capped deodorantbottles copyedited textbooks, got a master's degree in theology, andghostwrote sermons. It all became grist for the fictional mill - as has thefamily history she likes to learn more about every chance she gets. Shemight have to try her hand at that historical, after all - especially nowthat she's learned more about that second great-grandfather who claims tohave shot 40 men!

Anne and her husband have four children, four dogs, and one bionic cat who,contrary to all expectations, is working on his second millennium. Quite afew years ago they moved to the Midwest, but they spend more and more timein Montana. And as Anne says, she lives there in her head most of the timeanyway. She wishes a small town like her very own Elmer, Montana, existed.She'd move there in a minute.