Jennifer Ashley Gardner dreamed of being a published writer since the age of eight, writing love stories before she knew what romances were. She wrote fantasy and science fiction while in college, and after obtaining her master's degree in English literature, and a job in the real world, she decided to stop dreaming and try to be a full-time published author. She published the first short story she ever submitted in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, which gave her the false illusion that getting published was easy. After many more submissions and rejections, she sold her first novel in 2002, and made her second sale to Berkley with a series of historical mysteries. She writes historical, paranormal, and contemporary romance as Jennifer Ashley; mysteries as Ashley Gardner; and paranormal romance and urban fantasy as Allyson James. Her novels have won RWA's RITA award, the Golden Quill, RT Reviewer's Choice awards, and the Prism award, among others. Her novels have been also been translated into nearly a dozen European and Asian languages. She has traveled and lived all over the world, including in Europe and Japan, and now resides in sunny Arizona with her soul mate, an avid reader himself, in a houseful of books. She enjoys writing and reading above all else, but her hobbies include cooking, hiking, playing flute and guitar, painting, and building miniature rooms and dollhouses.