Jewellery has always been a big part of my life - you can hear my nana from a mile away with her clanging bangles and my uncle is a chain maker. I've always loved the glittering gems from the sparkles on Nana and Mum's fingers, my favourite books as a child were the Jewel Kingdom series, and I was a budding geologist at one point. I love my jewellery and have explored some amazing gemstones at Natural History museums in New York, Washington, and Sydney.

So this is my list of top five favourite gemstones.

As any Romance Writers of Australia member would understand, I have cupcakes on the brain - the theme of the 2020 sweet romance anthology. Now even though I no longer eat cake, I do remember the sweet taste of the yummy treats from the days I used to eat such things so this is just my list of favourite cake flavours!

Romance Writers of Australia's annual conference is on this weekend in Melbourne! I leave tomorrow for a little holiday before conference and cannot wait! This will be my third RWAus Conference and I have every hope that it'll be as fun as the previous two. So here's just my top 5 things that I love about the RWA Conference.

For a while there, you could have said Mexican was my favourite type of food. And honestly, I still love it today, except I find it too difficult to make considering, for it to be good, it's so high in kilojoules! But my favourite restaurant growing up was Cactus Jack's, a tex-mex bar and grill, and I worked there for five years during university. Then in 2016, I got to hop down to Tijuana for a few hours and was super keen to try authentic Mexican food ... and it was not very nice. At least, not at that restaurant. The fajita's I had in New York though, and London, were delicious!

So here is just a list of my favourite Mexican foods, even though I very rarely get to eat them anymore...

I love dogs. I've always had them in my life and they sometimes feature in my novels. My rural romantic suspense series in particular has a heavy dog thread and feature many dogs from Border Collies, Australian Cattle Dogs, Kelpies, and a number of Jack Russell Terriers.

So here's a list of my favourite dog breeds. And if you know me, this list will be of no surprise.

This is a really random post. I am not a foodie, I wouldn't say I love Chinese food, and I haven't eaten tonnes of it. It is not my go to. But I thought I'd do it anyway because there are some Chinese foods that I love! 

I apologise if these aren't culturally accurate as 'Chinese food', but I'm sure it's close enough.

Here's a random list - my top five names for girls. As writers, we are always thinking of names, deciding what name suits certain characters, and finding new names we fall in love with. And while favourite names often change, there are some that usually stick.

So here's my list of top five girls names.

I have always loved to dance and have been attending dance class since I was ten. I loved participating in dance performances at school and even studied dance during my high school junior years. However, I have probably danced more as an adult when the responsibility was all mine - I didn't have my parents saying 'no it's too expensive' and was able to get myself to class. 

I have not tried every dance style out there, but these are my top five dance styles.

New York City was my first holiday overseas as an adult. I was drawn to New York firstly because of Broadway and secondly, because of the famous sites there that I've always seen in the movies. I visited in the winter and therefore didn't spend much time in Central Park, but the best thing was I got to enjoy visiting these sites without the very long lines!

I had a friend in high school who was involved in theatre and introduced me to the world of musicals. After books, musicals are my favourite form of storytelling as there is no better way to express a story than through song.
I indulged in my love for musicals by visiting Broadway and spending every night of my three week trip to London at the theatre. I also love attending the local theatre and seeing musicals that are playing when I visit Brisbane and Sydney.
I also love musical movies, but this list is based on the stage versions of musicals.