The first book comes out in March 2006 and will be the first of three books in the series.

CB:  Who is the person who most influenced you with your writing?

Tracie:  I don’t know that I can put that to any one person. So many people have blessed me. I was a voracious reader as a child. I would read anything and everything. My mother actually had to go to the library and request that I be given an adult library card because I wanted to check out so many books every week and I wanted to read them from all over the library; the classics, I wanted to read westerns and biographies.

I was really influenced by people like Louis May Alcott and I mean not just “Little Women” but “Little Men” and “Eight Cousins” and everything that she wrote. Jane Austen, the classic writers like that … the Brontes. I loved to read.

As I’ve gotten older then there have been a variety of things. There was a time period where I read secular romance like crazy because there wasn’t any Christian romance out there and I loved romantic stories. Jude Devereaux and Catherine Woodiwiss and people like that. They were people I definitely loved to read. I was one of those readers who would skim the parts that contained sexual or sensual scenes and just went for the stories. Secular writers like Rosemary Pilcher and even Tom Clancy have such wonderful, intricate plot lines that I found fascinating to use as a learning tool for myself.

I became one of those people who tried to learn to write by what I was reading and I would tear into books and look at it and say, “Why does this work so well?” “Why did that plot line not work for me?” I would look at different things and establish how that made me feel and how that story line reached me.

When Christian fiction finally came out, I read Grace Livingston Hill. I read Catherine Marshall. There just wasn’t enough of any of those people. You start getting Janette Oke, Judith Pella and Michael Phillips and then Brock and Bodie Thoene and I just went nuts. I can’t say that there’s any one person who totally influenced my writing. I would say that my family and my husband have been huge supporters which influenced my ability to continue. That’s precious to me. My mother’s a huge supporter. We now have both mothers living with us. It’s been a fantastic experience. She wants to help out in any way. Sometimes she helps me with postcards and giving out bookmarks. She’s been a huge support. I couldn’t do what I do without my family.

CB:  What are some of the challenges you face as an author?

Tracie:  I think for me, personally, the different roles and different directions. People want you to go to conferences. They want you to do speaking engagements. They want you to make public appearances and books signings -- stuff like that. If you put too many of those things in your life, you don’t have too much time to sit home and write the books. Also with those kinds of demands, it drains your time with your family and the things you might have done otherwise.