This is Kensington Publishing's first Russian Romance.

I actually had to learn old-fashioned lock-picking in order to write the descriptions of breaking and entering. (Thank you to Mick Hanzlik in London for digging up that old, rare Harry Houdini book for me! And thanks to Harry for writing it.)

I had so much difficulty mastering the art of Russian last names, with patronymics and gender-specific surnames, that I woke up sweating in the middle of one night, fearing I had made an error. I ran to the bookshelf, found a copy of ANNA KARENINA, and sure enough, found that I had misunderstood one of the principles of Russian names. I called my editor in a panic! But don't worry. The mistake has been corrected.

The original title of the book was BOW MY HEART, but nobody knew what it meant. ("How can you tie a heart in a bow?" "No, not bow! Bow, as in curtsey!" "Well, how can a heart do THAT?") Oh well. NOW AND FOREVER makes more sense.

My favorite scene in this book is one which I never dreamed would make it all the way into print! (For those who have read it, it's the "arm-cutting scene"... I know you remember it!)

Of all the books I've written (published and unpublished), the hero of this story is the one whom most men like the best.