Barbara's Comments "I wrote the original Flirting With Pete as a novella centering on Jenny Clyde. But my readers expect novels, not novellas. So I created Casey Ellis as the vehicle through which Jenny's story is told. Casey is a go-getter and sensitive, but impulsive. She often acts before she thinks, which sometimes gets her into trouble. But she does want to please her father, and I know how that is. My mother died when I was eight, so I had her for a very short time. Yet I have spent a lifetime trying to do what I imagine would have made her proud. The characters in this book speak to me — not only Casey and Jenny, but the gardener, and even the little creature that Casey's father left behind in the townhouse. I also love the garden. Now, I am not a gardener; to the contrary, I am really bad at it. But I did my research and created that garden, and I would go there, figuratively speaking, during the writing of Flirting With Pete and just relax."