Often the magical elements in my books are standing in for elements of the real world the small and magical-in-their-own-right sorts of things that we take for granted and no longer pay attention to like the bonds of friendship that entwine our own lives with those of other people and places.

I'm calling my book series the 'with God series.' And this next 'with God' book is Friendship with God which comes out in November. This books challenges us to bring about the end of 'better' on this planet.

Another hero was Tom Swift in the books. What he stood for the freedom the scientific knowledge and being and engineer gave him the ability to invent solutions to problems. He's always been a hero to me. I buy old Tom Swift books now and read them to my own children.

With paper printed books you have certain freedoms. You can acquire the book anonymously by paying cash which is the way I always buy books. I never use a credit card. I don't identify to any database when I buy books. Amazon takes away that freedom.

If ebooks mean that readers' freedom must either increase or decrease we must demand the increase.

'Caught' is a novel of forgiveness and the past and the present - who should be and who shouldn't be forgiven. None of my books are ever just about thrills or it won't work.

In our house we repeated the pattern of thousands of other homes. There were a few books and a lot of music. Our food and our furniture were no different from our neighbors'.

I'm the only girl on The Food Network who grills - I have two bestselling grilling books. I try to really focus on what men and women can do outside together out on the grill. I think it's really fun to have men and women out there together having fun working and enjoying themselves.

I'm reading a lot of different books but I always think I have to switch it up a little bit. It's like food - everything in moderation same with my books same with my reading. You read books that are good for you and you learn a lot of stuff then you read 'Fifty Shades of Grey ' which is like candy.

I wanted to be a great white hunter a prospector for gold or a slave trader. But then when I was eight my parents sent me to a boarding school in South Africa. It was the equivalent of a British public school with cold showers beatings and rotten food. But what it also had was a library full of books.