People have been asking me, are there really gypsies in America? Well, in a word--yes. There are about 12 million gypsies in the world. Only around 200,000 of them are in America. Most are in Europe. The number is vague, as gypsies are notoriously reluctant to confide in governments.
But that's if you're talking about people of Romani heritage. In English, there's another meaning to the word "gypsy." It means a wanderer, a person inclined to an unconventional way of life. In this sense--everyone can be a gypsy.
A few years ago, I read about a woman who put up a website searching for the perfect husband. She had all these criteria--how tall he had to be and how much money he had to make. She would meet guys and post their pictures on her site. She would tell the world about their dates. Then, one after the other, she'd dump them.
The whole thing struck me as the saddest thing I'd ever seen. This poor woman thought that love had to conform to some idea she had in her head. If she could accept that love might come in a surprising form--or that she might have to give up something she held dear for love--maybe she would have found a man. So what if he was 5 foot 2? That's what flats are for.
Anyway, I don't know what happened to that woman. I couldn't stand looking at her site anymore. But out of her grew Cecelia. To find True Love, Cecelia had to grow out of her small ways of thinking about love. She had to think beyond boundaries.
No boundaries.
In that sense, I hope that we're all gypsies.
I hope you enjoy Make Me a Match, the first romance book written in the series. Sexiest Man Alive will be out in October, 07. And the third book written in the series will be out approximately a year after that.
--Diana