Barbara Karen Sherman has always been interested in writing from the time she was in grammar school, where she wrote and illustrated her own short stories.  While there, she won a special award for her writing.  When she was an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh, one of her short stories was chosen for submission to the Atlantic Monthly Short Story College Contest.  After receiving her Master of Arts degree in 19th-Century American Literature, she become a writer/editor for Good Housekeeping?s Special Publications, where she and another editor wrote and put together two entire issues.  From there, she went on to become writer/editor of 12 beauty magazines, then publicist for the Chesebrough-Ponds beauty accounts, for which she wrote a home-permanents manual and television commercials. She now resides in West Orange, New Jersey.  This is her first novel.