I grew up in post-war Wales as Mary Jenkins. It was in many ways an idyllic childhood even though Swansea, my home town, had been heavily bombed during the war, rationing was still on, and material possessions were few. If anyone knew how to stretch a penny to do the work of two, it was my mother.

Moira and I both used to fill notebooks with stories. We read voraciously–especially every book of Enid Blyton’s we could get our hands on when we were younger, the classics when we were a little older. We both used to say that we wanted to be authors when we grew up, though the word we used then was authoress. We both fulfilled our dream, though we both financed it with careers as high school English teachers.

My sister, Moira, two years older than I, was my constant playmate and soul-mate. We both have a hard time convincing people who did not know us then that we were almost inseparable yet never quarrelled. Our few dolls became our family. They had names, personalities, histories. We used to lie awake in bed at night–until our mother would call up, promising dire consequences if we did not stop talking–inventing stories about our dolls’ antics. On summer days Mam would construct a tent out of blankets, string and clothes pegs attached to the clothesline and the garden fence, and we would play “house” all day. The neighbours must have cringed when we took our dolls for walks in the strollers Dad made for us, complete with solid–and excruciatingly noisy–wooden wheels.

Our mother, Mildred Jenkins, was a homemaker and gave us a life of marvellous security. She excelled at numerous crafts, most recently exquisite lace-making. In the days of our childhood she used to sew all our dresses and knit all our sweaters while we did the same for our dolls. Our father, Arthur Jenkins, was a painter and sign writer at the time when the latter was still a skilled manual art. He was a gentle, patient, widely loved man. Our favourite game many evenings was combing his hair, buttoning and unbuttoning his waistcoat, and covering him with shawls when he must have been exhausted after a day’s work.

I had a very good education thanks to parents who emphasized the importance of school and career at a time when many people were still saying that education was wasted on girls. I was fortunate to be young at a time when there was employment in almost any field I might have chosen. I wanted to teach and travel, and came to Kipling, Saskatchewan, Canada, on a two-year teaching contract. But at the end of the first year I had a blind date with a man named Robert Balogh and found a tall, sharply dressed, blue-eyed Adonis standing in my landlady’s kitchen when I came down from my room on the fateful evening. We were married a little over a year later. Robert used to farm but has now sold his land. He is a retired ambulance driver and coroner, and now spends his time cutting lawns in the summer and clearing snow, except during December, when he is sometimes transformed into Santa Claus.

Siân, the youngest of our children, lives in the United States. She is the owner of Jane Sinister Productions, a company specializing in production coordination and travel logistics within the live entertainment industry.

Christopher, our middle child, lives in New Jersey with wife Carey and sons Cash and Christo. Chris is the founder and owner of Natas Productions, where he designs and manages everything from event logistics to ticketing and seating for major global music tours. Carey is founder and CEO of Brand Groupies, a growing agency specializing in social media, public relations, and podcast production. Cash and Christo, high school students, both play soccer and are involved in numerous other extracurricular activities.

Jacqueline, the eldest of our children, lives in Peebles, Saskatchewan, with partner Tony. Jacquie is a hypnotherapist, author, and instructor of advance hypnosis protocols. Tony, a finisher and contractor, is owner of Paramount Concrete Solutions.

Jacqueline has three children, Matthew, Shianne, and Jayden, and four grandchildren, Mia, Melody, Kade, and Kendra (all Matthew’s)

Matthew, Jacqueline’s eldest, lives in Creston, British Columbia, with partner Falen and their two children, Kade and Kendra. Matthew has a landscaping and concrete-laying business

Matthew’s older daughters, Mia and Melody, live with Rayne, their mother, in Saskatchewan. Mia is a high school student. Melody is in middle school. They are shown in the picture with Jacqueline.

Shianne, Jacqueline’s middle child, lives in Regina, Saskatchewan. She is a social worker for the government in Child and Family programs. She is also an avid slow pitch ball player and enjoys numerous other sports and activities.

Wanting to be an author is a dream; wanting to be a teacher is an practical goal. The goal I could and did work toward. Then, of course, marriage and motherhood intervened to take more and more time off my hands. Sian was six years old before I felt I had enough time to take up an evening hobby–writing!

I was addicted to the novels of Georgette Heyer, whom I had discovered only a few years before while working my way through a Grade XI reading list during a maternity leave. I cannot adequately explain how enchanted I was, how transported into a world I had experienced before only through Jane Austen. I knew that if ever I wrote, it was that romantic world of Regency England that I wanted to recreate.

And so A Masked Deception got written in longhand at the kitchen table while home and family functioned around me after the supper dishes were done. Finally, at the end of 1983, three months after I had started it, the manuscript was ready to be submitted. But where? And how? I knew nothing about the publishing world and nothing about any writers’ organizations. To say I was a greenhorn would be to flatter me. I picked out the publisher I thought did the best job of Regencies, found a Canadian address inside the cover of one of the Signet books, and sent my manuscript there with a brief covering letter. The Mississauga address was a mere distribution centre! But incredibly someone there read the manuscript, liked, it, wrote to tell me so, and sent it on to New York. Two weeks later I had a call from Hilary Ross, offering me a two-book contract. Sometimes it pays not to have a clue what one is doing!

And so the dream became reality. A Masked Deception was published in 1985 and I won the Romantic Times Award for best new Regency writer that year. Since then there have been numerous Regencies, historicals, and novellas, and more awards too.

My first five books were written longhand and typed into an ancient typewriter. The First Snowdrop was the first book to be written into a computer–an all-in-one dinosaur of a machine that had me in transports of delight. I could actually go back and correct typing errors! I could make wholesale changes without having to rewrite the whole thing. Best of all–and I still have not quite recovered from the novelty of this–when I was finished, I could press a key (no mouse in those days!) and the printer would do the typing for me while I put my feet up and relaxed–or washed another load of dishes, or marked another set of essays…

Finally, in 1988, I was able to retire from teaching after twenty years in order to devote myself to my dream career. And as the children grew up and left home and empty bedrooms behind them, I was able to set up my own study and surround myself with all my books and finest treasures.

Let no one ever say that dreams cannot come true. They can with vision and effort and a little luck–well, perhaps a great deal of luck.