As a child, thoughts of far-off places and adventure consistently kept Lori up late at night when she should have been fast asleep. After graduating high school, she came to the conclusion that there was no better way to seek adventure and nourish her love of history than to become an archaeologist. She went on to receive a degree in anthropology, but digging in the dirt during humid Midwestern summers wasn’t exactly as fun as she thought it would be. Instead, she went to work in an air conditioned museum where she spent her days surrounded by creepy Victorian animal mounts. Still, she wasn’t satisfied.

Deciding the people in her imagination were slightly more exciting than the dead things in a museum basement, she set out to write her first romance novel. Shockingly enough, the book finaled in a few contests, lending to the crazy assumption that she would quickly be published and live happily ever after. That book was soundly rejected. As was the next. Years went by and she began to wonder if she’d ever see her dream fulfilled. Until one day she came up with an idea for a book that brought together her love of history and adventure: a book now titled Wild Heart.

But that book, too, was rejected. And rejected again. And again. Just when she’d given up hope of ever being published, Wild Heart came in first place in the Golden Acorn contest. The final round judge from Kensington Publishing requested the manuscript, and she was finally offered that elusive contract.