Hello Mary Margret, and welcome to FAR, it is good to have you with us today. Your readers are curious to learn more about Mary Margret Daughtridge. Pull up a chair and let's get started.

Mary Margret, we are anxious to hear about the second in your SEALed series, Sealed With A Promise. Why not begin by discussing your new release?

Caleb "Do-Lord" Dulaude began demanding his own book before I was half-done with SEALed With A Kiss. Becoming a SEAL was the making of this wily, Mensa-material charmer.

When he was just a trailer trash kid he made a promise that someday he'd make Senator Teague Calhoun, who Caleb believes to be his father, pay for abandoning him and his mother.

He was thinking like a kid when he made the promise. Now he's thinking like a SEAL and he's on a mission so covert, even his fellow SEALs can't know about it. Emmie Caddington, plain Jane academic, is just the ticket he needs to insert inside Calhoun's perimeter. Oddly enough, pursuing her is not a hardship. He sees in her a fey, quirky charm, and an intellect to match his own.

Emmie's no fool. If a guy like Caleb is coming on to her, something is up. But his presence in her life makes her challenge some long-held beliefs about herself. She's asserting herself and having fun as never before.

When a child's life is threatened they will each have to choose which values are important and which promises must be kept.

What other works do you have in preparation that you would like to share with us today?

I'm hard at work these days on Her Fate Was SEALed, Davy's story. He's the too-sexy-for-his-shirt hospital corpsman (medic) you'll meet in SEALed With A Promise.

Sidelined by head wounds sustained in Afghanistan, about to be decorated, suddenly saddled with financial responsibility for his younger siblings, all he wants is his life back. That means the life of an operating SEAL.

When a totally hot woman, who says they have met before but whose name he doesn't remember, approaches him with a marriage proposal, he listens although he's not looking for a wife. The deal she's offering will take care of his family responsibilities, and free him so that once he's healed, he can get back to living.

JJ's responsibilities to the family business leave her no time for love. Her grandfather, fearing she'll make the same mistake he did and put the business before having a life, threatens to dismantle the business and sell it, if she doesn't find a husband.

In a totally out of character moment, JJ had a one-night stand with Davy. Now she reasons having a SEAL husband she'll never see is the next best thing to not having one at all. What does she care if he's modern-day rake? It takes calling in some favors, but she finds him, and offers him a deal.

Sometimes you get less than you bargained for. Sometimes you get a whole lot more.

How much of your personality and life experiences come out in your writing?

Sometimes I think to myself, "Oh my goodness! What if somebody thinks that's me!" But of course it's all me. Because it was all constructed from my imagination.

For setting I draw on my Eastern North Carolina background. Aunt Lilly Hale, an important secondary character in SEALed With A Promise, is a blend of many strong women I've known who understand their role as "keeper of the family" and unhesitatingly wield their power for the family good.

My experience in many different psychology/counseling settings brought me into intimate contact with everyone from the poor and powerless to captains of industry and influences my writing profoundly. I know what makes people tick. In their deepest heart of heart, no matter how perfect they seem on the outside, everyone has fears, unresolved pain, and blindspots. I can't imagine writing anything but character-driven stories.

And of course, I write the kind of stories that satisfy me. That means both hero and heroine are imperfect. They must grow in order to reach the happy ending, and their relationship must change both of them.

When did you first think about writing and what prompted you to submit your first manuscript?

I've been making up stories as long as I can remember. In fact, longer than I can remember. I have no recall of it, but my first grade teacher told my mother I would gather the other children around me and tell them stories. According to her, if I couldn't remember how the story ended, I'd make it up. I suspect, I made up different endings because I didn't like the usual story and thought I could do better.

I began writing as soon as I learned how, but for many years, I didn't consider myself a writer-even though I had reams and reams of yellow legal pads covered with stories tucked in closets.

A few years ago, I decided to attempt a full length romance, mainly to prove to myself that I could. It wasn't long until I was hooked, and devoting every spare minute to it.

I had a lot to learn, and I can't express too much appreciation of Heart of Carolina Romance Writers for their help at every stage. I really intended Sealed With A Kiss to be my practice novel-the one I wrote to learn how. But one day, I was working on it and I realized it was good.

To make sure I wasn't kidding myself, I entered it into a couple of contests and it did surprisingly well. I knew the huge odds against a first novel being published, but it seemed like SEALed With A Kiss deserved a chance-and it wouldn't get one unless I started sending it out. The rest is history.

Do you have a set schedule for composing? What is your writing routine once you start a book?

I like to get up early-five AM My imagination seems to be freer then. I work every day-Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. I've learned the hard way that when the story is flowing it seems impossible to shut it off, but if I get stopped, starting again is hard-sometimes agonizing. I write new stuff until around ten. Later I might work on "layering" a section I've already roughed in-but that's much easier than the original creation.

Do you have many interruptions after you begin writing?

One reason I think five AM works so well for me, is that I'm the only one awake. : ) Even the internet is quiet at that hour. By ten, I've passed the creative peak, so dealing with other things/people isn't a wrench.

Where do your ideas come from?

In common with many writers I have two strong personality traits that blend together into an "idea generator."

1.) I'm immensely curious. I want to know about everything, and how it got that way.

2.) I'm a bit of an oppositional thinker. As soon as I learn anything is one way, I instantly think, "Yes, but what if…?"

The two traits combine with an interest in people. I don't just enjoy knowing about people. I love to learn what motivates them, what they believe and why. And of course, when I know them I begin to wonder, what if…

It's where the idea for SEALed With A Promise came from. In the course of my research, I couldn't help but notice that SEAL training takes good men and teaches them to do bad things-while somehow allowing them to remain good men.

Of course, I immediately wondered, what if someone hadn't been taught to be a good man before he became a SEAL? What if his early training had taught him to be a criminal with no moral values except what helped him and his mother survive?

And then I wondered, what if in becoming a SEAL, he became a good man? How would he handle conflicts around honor, responsibility and integrity?

Those questions gave birth to my hero, Caleb "Do-Lord" Dulaude.

If you could go back in time, what time and place would you enjoy visiting, and is there anything you would change?

I've always wished I could see the court at Versailles circa 1780, before the French Revolution. We see that period through the filter of the Revolution, but I would like to see "reality" the way they saw it. Among the excesses, the self-aggrandizement, the sheer silliness was there a place for compassion, generosity, or sensitivity?

I guess my tendency to ask what if makes me wonder if there was a point at which it could have turned out differently.

What really draws your attention to a good book, the cover art, the genre, the author or the blurb?

Like a lot of romance readers, once I discover a writer I like, I'm deeply loyal. When I go into a bookstore, I first scan the shelves for new releases by my favorites-noting matters but the name on the cover. A clever or provocative title (Undead and Unwed comes to mind)always catches my eye, and combined with the back blurb will make a sale. The cover art comes last for me, unless it really is art. Casablanca has used paintings on some of the regencies that take my breath away. I like the painterly feel of the cover of SEALed With A Promise, and I like double-entendre of SEALed.

Mary Margret, would you share your website, myspace or any blogs with us?

I don't have a resident teenager, and I confess to being techno-challenged, so I'm not on myspace yet. I blog a couple of times a month at CasablancaAuthors.blogspot.com and I can always be found at me website.

When it comes to making New Years Resolutions, do you set goals or just brush that thought aside?

Calendar dates, like New Year's Day aren't especially important to me. Indeed, I have very poor memory for dates of any kind. This is the truth: I have a friend I have to call and ask, any time I need to know the year I was married. My friends, my hairdresser, my dentist all accept that if they want me to get to an appointment they need to call and remind me. It's not that I forget, it's that I don't know today is the day.

As you can see, there's no point in choosing New Year's to set goals. : ) That said, I believe strongly in setting goals. The most important part of goal-setting is not the to-do list that gets generated.

The important thing is becoming clear in your own mind about what you want, and what you're willing to put yourself, your talents and your heart into.

In SEALed With A Promise, Emmie finds her strength when she starts to know what she wants.

You just found out your edits to your next book are due tomorrow morning and you have to bake 60 cupcakes, and two cakes, for the school bake sale and have them delivered by 9 a.m. Do you panic? Or take everything in stride?

People have often remarked on my serenity-which surprises me because I'm not aware of being especially serene. So I probably wouldn't be happy about the situation, but I probably wouldn't panic. I'm blessed with really good friends. I'd probably call one and ask for help.

What would you classify as your favorite time of day?

I don't know. I love morning, and watching the dawn outside my studio window. But I also enjoy the intense blue light of dusk. I often sit and watch it-not turning on the lights until the room is really dark-while I give myself space to unwind at the end of the day. Sometimes the best is when, pleasantly tired, I crawl into bed, pull up my fluffy comforter, and look forward to a night of setting my spirit free to dream.

Mary Margret, thank you so much for chatting with us today. It has indeed been a pleasure. Good luck to you and your writing.

Thank you, Linda! I enjoyed thinking about your interesting and insightful questions.

Interviewed by: Linda L.