Callum Ironstone didn't do guilt. Even so, the millionaire did feel responsible enough for struggling chef Miranda Owen to offer her a job. She could cater his holiday dinner party...an important affair where he planned to propose to the appropriate woman. Except somehow he'd ended up with Miranda in his bed.

He tried to blame it on the mistletoe. But Callum knew Miranda's transformation from dowdy wallflower to sensual beauty had hit him right where it counted. Perhaps she could be made into the hostess his position demanded...provided Miranda forgave him for destroying her family.

Tessa sold her first Silhouette Desire book after an online pitch on the eHarlequin.com Web site. "It was both scary and exciting, a bit like riding a roller coaster," says Tessa. "Once it started, everything happened so fast."

Several sales followed in quick succession. A keen reader since childhood, Tessa is thrilled to join the author community here at eHarlequin.com. "It took a while to get over the unreality of it all, but it finally started to sink in. There's nothing more satisfying than working on a new story. I love getting to know a whole new set of characters and finding out what they want from life."

There's one piece of advice that Tessa credits with getting her through the publication process. At the first weekend writing course she had ever attended, romance author Robyn Donald said that, to be published, a writer needed three things: talent (which hard work could polish), perseverance and luck. That stuck in Tessa's mind, and so her advice to would-be authors now is: "Hold on to your dream. Keep writing and never give up."

You can contact Tessa though her Web site at www.tessaradley.com. And while you're there, don't forget to check out the fun page and enter Tessa's latest contest. Or you can come read with Tessa over at Team Novelchicks, part of the eHarlequin.com 2007 10,000 Book Challenge.