 In
1975 Nancy Bush bumped into a fortune teller celebrating St. Patrick’s
Day at a popular Irish bar in Portland, Oregon. Always intrigued
by the unexplained, Bush dared the woman to read her palm. The
fortune teller informed Bush that she would someday be a writer
and have one child, who would be the single most important thing
in her life.
At the time both writing and children were
the furthest things from Bush’s mind. A graduate of Oregon State
University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Foods and Nutrition,
Bush was working at a bank and honing her business skills. She
was dating her husband-to-be, Ken Bush, but at the time they had
no plans to marry. She thought the palm reader’s prediction was
little more than a clever act.
Little did she know how close to the truth
the fortune teller’s vision of her life would become. She married
Ken Bush in 1976 and gave birth to her only daughter, Kelly, in
1980. A year later, Bush read an article in Time magazine
about young mothers who, after their last child was put to bed and
the final diaper washed, pulled out their typewriters and began
penning romance novels–for money! Bush told her sister, Lisa
Jackson, “I think we could do that,” and overcoming Jackson’s
arguments that they were both mystery readers, not romance readers and therefore didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hades of
writing one, Bush began developing her first romantic novel. Jackson
eventually agreed to be a part of the project.
The sisters and a friend spent half a year
creating, writing and rewriting a book they titled STORMY SURRENDER.
Bush retyped the work and sent it to many New York publishing houses,
which all rejected the novel as being “too suspenseful”, “not romantic
enough” or “having too much mystery.” The team of three split up,
and Bush, reading that Young Adult romance novels were the next
big thing, turned her attention to the teen scene. Though she complained
to a friend that she didn’t think she could “roll back the years
to the senior prom,” her friend disagreed and, sure enough, she
was soon pounding the keys of the typewriter again, this time focusing
on teenaged angst. ABBY’S CHANCE was finished a few months later.
Retitled DARE TO LOVE by Silhouette Books, Bush’s first novel was
published in November 1982.
From the moment of the first sale, Bush
was hooked on writing. In the ensuing years she wrote more than
thirty novels, the bulk for Silhouette Books’ Special Edition imprint;
plus a series of historical romance novels set in 1880s Oregon for
Pocket Books, several young adult series and five Nancy Drew Mysteries.
During this time she also turned her attention
to script writing. Through perseverance Bush was awarded a chance
to move to New York and be part of a soap opera writing workshop.
There, with her husband’s support, she eventually worked as a breakdown
writer for “All My Children,” developing a storyline into daily
scripts. She ultimately returned to Oregon to write a mystery series
of her own.
Bush sold the first three Jane Kelly mysteries to Kensington Publishing. CANDY APPLE RED introduced the series where Jane answers the question, "Whatever happened to Bobby Reynods?" a family annihilator missing for four years. Along the way Jane inherits a pug, reconnects with an old love and wonders if she'll ever be able to swim in Lake Chinook again now that a dead body's been found floating in its green depths. Successive books ELECTRIC BLUE and ULTRAVIOLET have kept up with Jane's private-eye exploits.
Bush couldn't be happier finally being able to write the kind of books she loves to read. The Jane Kelly character is an amalgam of herself and her daughter Kelly. The idea for Jane's pug was actually conceived before Bush bought her own dog. The Binkster originally came to life within the pages of CANDY APPLE RED but now is an entertaining member of the Bush family.
Bush, always an avid reader, loves to work crossword puzzles, read mystery novels, walk around a nearby Oregon lake and spend time at the beach with her husband, daughter, son-in-law, sister and granddaughter. Glimpses of her life sometimes appear in the pages of her books. While she plans more Jane Kelly stories, she's taken a turn into writing romantic suspense. Her first solo thriller, UNSEEN, will debut in 2009.
Thirty
years after the fact, she looks back at the chance meeting with
the fortune teller in the Irish bar and realizes it truly was fate.
As it turns out, the palm reader was right on the money.
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