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​Martha O'Sullivan has loved reading romance novels for as long as she can remember. Writing her own books is the realization of a lifelong dream. She is a graduate of Illinois State University where she wrote for The Vidette and was a member of Zeta Tau Alpha. She is also a former Acquisitions Editor at MacMillan Computer Publishing. Martha writes contemporary romances with male/female couples, a central love story and happy endings. Her Chances Trilogy—Second Chance, Chance Encounter and Last Chance—and fourth novel Christmas in Tahoe, are available in print and digital formats at online retailers everywhere. Her new book, Sierra Fall, was released on February 18, 2025. A native Chicagoan, she lives her own happy ending in Florida with her husband and daughters.

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To My Readers, 

 

My love affair with California began at the tender age of fifteen and continues today, over four decades later. So it should come as no surprise that the book of my heart, which ultimately became the Chances Trilogy, as well as Christmas in Tahoe and my new release, Sierra Fall, are set there.

 

Maybe it was the ineffable thrill of a midwestern girl seeing the ocean for the first time. Or the movie star-like, perpetually bronzed surfers playing beach volleyball in the sand. Maybe the soaring palm trees gently swaying against the blinding blue sky. But that was in Southern California; my books are set in Lake Tahoe and San Francisco, hundreds of miles to the north.

 

I was an only child of the seventies, growing up in a place where short, precious summers became long, cold winters seemingly overnight. In high school I often opted for the city bus because it stopped in front of the public library. It was just a branch, but they had loads of paperback books. And I always found myself drawn to the wire rack of slightly musty and lovingly tattered romance novels. The books took me to places all over the world where effortlessly beautiful, determined heroines were swept off their feet by handsome, larger-than-life heroes and lived happily ever after. And if I found the book’s ending disappointing or the story ended too soon, I would simply finish it in my head to my liking.

 

Writing such ideas down, however, took another thirty years. In the interim, I went to college and met my own hero. And we went to San Francisco on our honeymoon. And, as cliché as it sounds, that’s where I left my heart. Part of it anyway. Until a few years later when I went to Lake Tahoe for the first time and my love affair with California moved farther north. 

 

I hope my books-Second Chance, Chance Encounter, Last Chance, Christmas in Tahoe and Sierra Fall- take you there. And you’ll leave a little piece of your heart behind too.

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