After 30 novels, release day is still a thrill. It's always a little bittersweet, too.

I am honored to have had two Hallmark Hall of Fame Productions made from my novels - 'Silver Bells' and 'Follow the Stars Home.'

Anyone with a heart, with a family, has experienced loss. No one escapes unscathed. Every story of separation is different, but I think we all understand that basic, wrenching emotion that comes from saying goodbye, not knowing if we'll see that person again - or perhaps knowing that we won't.

The patients there were mostly teenaged girls, with the occasional boy. I thought of us all as tigers with thorns in our paws. We were beautiful beasts who’d gotten injured by life, by loss or trauma or shock, and if we could just get the splinters out of our paws, we’d be fine. My thorn was the fact that my mother had left me. Megan.

That was really it, her message as a nun and a child of God: listen deeply to your heart. That was how and where God communicated with people. Not so much in burning bushes or on mountaintops, in blue grottos or apparitions of the Virgin Mary, but more often in the depths of their own hearts.

All I know is we’re 16 and ready to be kissed, kissed kissed.

Hugh had been her obsession. When he was away, she had assumed he was with other women. It drove her crazy, dominated her thoughts. She had tried to concentrate on her daughters, but her own insecurity was much too huge. When Skye would beg for a story or Clea would need help with her music lessons, Augusta would tell them to ask Caroline. So Augusta could be with Hugh.

Something you always look for, but never know when it’s going to happen.

Goodbyes were impossible, unless you didn’t realize you were saying them.

Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter to the other. “Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other. “Now there is no more loneliness; now you are two persons but there is only one life before you. “Go now to your dwelling place to enter into the days of your life together. “And may your days be good and long upon the earth and in heaven.