When JoAnn Smith Ainsworth carried wood as a pre-teen so her Great Aunt Martha could stoke up the iron stove to prepare dinner, she wasn’t thinking, “I could use this in a novel someday.” Yet, the skills she learned from her horse-and-buggy ancestors translate into backdrops for her historical romance and paranormal suspense novels.

Believing it’s never too late to create your dream, she resurrected a desire to write when in retirement. Her debut medieval romantic suspense novels, MATILDA’S SONG and OUT OF THE DARK, received 4 stars from RT Book Reviews. JoAnn’s two historical western romances will be e-published by Whiskey Creek Press (POLITE ENEMIES, ebook ISBN:  978-1-61160-636-2, releases Sept. 2013 and THE FARMER AND THE WOOD NYMPH, ebook ISBN: 978-1-61160-660-7, releases Dec. 2013). Both will release in print a few months later.

Her agent (Dawn Dowdle of Blue Ridge Literary Agency) sold an Operation Delphi paranormal suspense novel, EXPECT TROUBLE (print ISBN:  978-1-61009-074-2, releases April 2014), to Oak Tree Press. JoAnn was a child in WWII and her memories of those times add poignancy to the novel.

Among her achievements are Chief Clerk of a U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee, database administrator for an international law firm and a 3 1/2-mo. trip around the world.

She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley with a double major in English and Social Science. She has her Masters in Teaching English and ESL from Fairleigh Dickinson University and her M.B.A. studies from Pepperdine University.

She’s most proud of becoming an author as a senior citizen. She will be 75 when EXPECT TROUBLE releases.

To learn more, visit http://www.joannsmithainsworth.com or Twitter @JoAnnAinsworth or @JoAnnParanormal or Facebook to learn about her author life. Check out her paranormal writings and WWII remembrances on Facebook’s “JoAnn Smith Ainsworth Fan Page”.