Connie/Constance Bennett is the award-winning, bestselling author of five historical romances written under the pseudonym Constance Bennett, and fifteen contemporary romances written as Connie Bennett. A native of Missouri, Connie spent four years in Los Angeles performing live theatre and studying film and television acting before returning home to launch her writing career in 1985. Her Harlequin Superromances, Playing by the Rules and Thinking of You, were both nominated by Romantic Times as Best Superromance in their respective years of publication, and Playing by the Rules went on to win a Romantic Times achievement award as Best Romantic Mystery of 1990. Two years later, Connie received the first of her two prestigious Rita Award nominations from Romance Writers of America. Her Berkley/Diamond historical, Blossom, was nominated for a Rita in 1992, and in 1995, her Harlequin Superromance Single . . . with Children was nominated as Best Contemporary Category Romance. In 2000, Connie took a break from writing and recently retired from her 9-to-5 marketing job. Though she is no longer actively writing, she occasionally accepts invitations to teach her popular "Plotting Fiction" workshop," but mostly dabbles in refinishing "distressed" furniture and selling antiques and collectibles. She lives in Tornado Alley and is certainly accustomed to the threat of tornadoes, that also she included in some novels.