Janis Flores

Janis Flores was born in Montana, grew up in Colorado, and vigorously resisted becoming a “Valley Girl,” when her family was transferred to southern California’s San Fernando Valley when she was a teenager. She became a Medical Technologist after college graduation, working in a medical lab that left little time for writing anything but test results. She married Ray Flores and they moved to northern California—she to supervise a laboratory there; he to establish his horseshoeing business. It was then that she began complaining that she’d never had time to take a writing course in college. A man can only take so much, so Ray finally told her to quit whining and sign up for a class at the local college. The class was on the short story, but as Jan always seems to have a lot to say, she wrote her first novel, a Gothic suspense called HAWKSHEAD, which was subsequently published in hardcover by Doubleday and Company. That first book was quickly followed by two more Gothics: PEREGRINE HOUSE and GYRFALCON HALL, and then the best-selling historicals: BITTERSWEET, CYNARA and HIGH DOMINION. A move to Random House produced the contemporary mainstream novels LOVING TIES, RUNNING IN PLACE, and DIVIDED LOYALTIES, and the best-selling and award-winning ABOVE REPROACH, TOUCHED BY FIRE, and SIREN SONG. Janis has also written category romance under the pseudonyms April Thorne and Risa Kirk. She lives in Sebastopol, California, with her husband, three dogs, and two pampered Arabian horses. She’s given up trying to finish a sampler quilt by Spring—any Spring.