Tori Phillips

As an Army brat, then a Navy Wife, and now a travel nut, Tori has been packing suitcases for a lifetime. Though born in Washington, D.C., she considers herself a Virginian at heart as this state was her first, and now present home. Tori started first grade in Baltimore, Maryland; finished eighth grade in Heidelberg, Germany; graduated from high school in Bethesda, Maryland; and received her Bachelor's Degree in San Diego, California. Tori and Marty, Tori's husband of 33 years, were married in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, had their children in Honolulu and Detroit, Michigan, and lived all over the map from Newport, Rhode Island to London, England. Along the way, Tori and Marty have met wonderful people, eaten all sorts of strange foods, and enjoyed having lots of mini-adventures. Tori has ridden on camels and elephants, sailed on the Nile in a falucca, and recently petted a live shark. She has bargained in bazaars in Istanbul, Cairo, and London's Portobello Road. Tori has visited castles in England, Scotland, Germany, Liechtenstein, France, Wales, Spain, and Portugal, and attended a royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace. She particularly loved floating through the canals of Venice in a gondola. She hiked on warm lava flows in Hawaii's Volcano National Park, and sampled wine in California's Napa Valley. Tori has shivered in the harem of Topkapi, and sweltered inside the Great Pyramid of Cheops. She's tramped knee-deep through a Louisiana bayou, and scrambled over most of the major Civil War battlefields from Shiloh, Tennessee to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to Manassas, Virginia. In fact, Tori's house sits on top of the site of a minor Confederate cavalry skirmish known as the Burke Station Raid. She has discovered mine balls in the garden, and she loves to tell visitors that Confederate General JEB Stuart rode right through her living room. Well, he probably did. The area isn't very large. During her children's growing years, Tori hosted a number of pets: a philosophical dog named Toby, a large school of goldfish, several frogs, a white rat named Ratsputan, a couple of gerbils, a guinea pig, a box turtle (briefly), and a hermit crab. Please, don't even ask her about the tarantula that was loose in the house for six weeks. Currently, her next door neighbor's cat thinks he owns the Phillips household. Fabio (the cat) is very partial to spaghetti, chicken, and vanilla ice cream. During all this time, Tori has written diaries, letters, postcards, newsletter stories, and favorite recipes. Also, poetry, which is very private. Her first professional writing, i.e. for money, were a couple of humorous pieces for Teen magazine. Two decades and a zillion rejection slips later, she published four plays, which are still in print. In 1991, her daughter got married, her son moved out, and Tori quit her full-time job as an office manager for a chiropractor. At that point in her life, she decided to take a serious stab at writing a novel. In late 1994, Harlequin bought her third attempt. Fool's Paradise is a Maggie award-winner that takes place during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Tori loves to hear from readers. Her address is: Tori Phillips, P.O. Box 10703, Burke, VA 22009-0703 USA.