Mala - I think it was - what would happen to someone who was transplanted into a foreign culture and had to survive when she was abandoned. I love historical fiction so I wanted a historical ackstory. The idea for that came from a dinner with people we met in Martinique. They told the story of brothers who came from France to artinique and one of them went off to fight in the American revolution and was never heard from again....until a descendent showed up one day walking down the lane of the estate. We were fascinated by that story. The part of the story about the lost child came from my father's family. When they came from Germany through Ellis Island they were separated from an 18-month-old child whom they never found. That story haunts me.

Roger- For me Jamie's story is about starting over. Nobody ever plans to start over in life in a major way but we are forced into it either suddenly or by a succession of events. In doing psychotherapy we saw people make choices all the time and it was uplifting to see them fight back and win. The plot details came from many sources.

BookReview - The setting of the book is so wonderfully tropical and exotic. I've read on your webpages that you were inspired by St. Lucia and were entranced by the island enough to make big changes in your lives. Can you share how very deeply you are now involved in Island Life?

Mala - We have spent so much time on St. Lucia that the "research" was really a matter of immersion. It wasn't hard to place the book in St. Lucia. All the locations are based on real places with creative adaptations. We listened to people who had lived on the island during the time frame of this first novel to get an idea of what the island was like before it became a popular tourist destination.

Our current involvement with St. Lucia is with our property there which we currently have on the market. Then there is our other joy in assisting others with travel to St. Lucia, St. Martin, Barbados, Grand Cayman and Martinique. IslandTrips.com, is a subsidiary of Step By Step, Inc. http://www.islandtrips.com

Roger - We refer to the experience of St. Lucia as "our other life". It is very hard to truly get to know an alien environment when you merely visit. I use the term "alien" advisedly because over time we really became aware that for Americans it is more alien than you realize at the beginning. When visiting on vacation you see only the surface designed to give the holiday impression. The island life reaches so much deeper and is much more complex. Conveying the experience of St. Lucia in depth truly required a novel. Ordinary descriptions lack substance.

BookReview - Co-authoring is not always the easiest way to go. Is one of you the more creative one and the other the plot planner, or do you each work on each side of the writing?

Mala - We have always worked together and seem to have a knack for carving out what we call "spheres of influence" and do a rather remarkable job of not stepping on one another's toes. Roger and I plot together. He then writes a detailed outline and I write from that. When we get to the point in a book where the dialogue or the plot spins in a different direction, we re-plot and he redoes the outline and I go on writing. I hand him what I've done and he is the first reader and comes back with suggestions about what works and what doesn't. Or details what he thinks should be included or plot elements that need to be strengthened. Our major conflict is that writing for me is not linear and Roger can be impatient with the time it takes for me to get things on paper. But the process is synergistic and our stories are better for it.

Roger - I experience internal conflict between idea development and writing. Plot ideas for me tend to be more free flowing and do not necessarily begin with a lot of structure. Together we work out the structure. Sometimes I do the classic waking up in the middle of the night with scenes or ideas. Things also come up when I'm driving. The plot for the second book basically came to me on a very boring drive. We were working on what is now book three and I "discovered" book two. It's not unusual for us to have a character walk in the door in the writing process, but. I did not expect to have a whole book walk in the door.

If we disagree about a scene or an idea we just have to look at the context and look for the best fit. We have a lot of years of learning to work together on a whole lot of projects. However, I don't think I would want to start out learning how to work together by writing novels.

BookReview - Does your previous work as a psychologist and clinical social worker help or hinder that process?

Mala - Our former careers as mental health professionals mean we have insight into the motivations for the choices people make - choices that set them on paths that chart one course over another in their lives. I am fascinated by the idea of what would happen to any of us if we had taken that other path instead of the one we chose. So having the psychological training we do has helped our writing, I think.

Roger - When I was in graduate school the psychology department at Duke had a heavy emphasis on the work of Carl Jung who was steeped in mythology. I did my dissertation using one of his systems. Being so conversant with his work and his thoughts helps me in the development of plot elements.

BookReview - Fate plays a huge part in the book's plot: It is a side of the story that I adore. Do you believe in Fate? Synchronicity? Have you experienced anything like it in your own lives?

Mala - I do believe in fate but I also believe that the choices we make impact our fates. I believe Roger and I have been together in various forms since ancient Greece. We can explore this "fated to be together" theme in romance novels.

Roger - Whatever it is, it worked for Mala and myself and its been a very good thing. I guess I don't want to make judgements about fate. It's more a matter of faith and belief and probably enrichment.

As to ancient Greece, Mala left out one thing. She said I had a bad left leg when she knew me in Greece. Years later, in this life, I had a catastrophic automobile accident with terrible injury to my left leg which left it shorter. I'd like to do this all over again with Mala but without the left leg thing.

BookReview - Psychic power also plays a large part in the book. Again, it was a detail that I enjoyed very much. What are your thoughts on that subject?

Mala - The psychic part is interesting. There was a time in my life when I was much more tuned into this and then I had kids and went to graduate school and had a profession and it faded into the background. When I started writing, it all spilled out into the story, so I guess it never went away.

Roger - Yes, we all get so caught up in our possessions and our activities that we don't tend our spiritual side, including psychic activities. I also put most of it away for decades and then it came rushing out again.

BookReview - Is there any message within the book that you wished your readers to pick up on?

Mala - There is a message. It is.....Who and Where will you be if you allow yourself to dream? I think we all get so bogged down in our daily lives that we forget to dream, to look at possibilities, at the little or big changes that would enrich us or alter the paths we might venture down.

Roger - Related to what Mala said is that in the end calamitous events are often nothing other than an opportunity. An opportunity to grow, to take a new path, to expand our lives. Jamie's story details this process for us.

Biography:

Mala and Roger Burt, who write novels as Annie Rogers, are partners in work and marriage. For them, the Annie Rogers adventure began in June of 1987 when they made their first visit to St. Lucia. By the end of a week, St. Lucia had worked its magic and they wanted to come back. And so they did over the next sixteen years, building a second home, starting a Caribbean travel business and, now, writing novels set in the Caribbean. They chose the pen name Annie Rogers, a juxtaposition of Mala's middle name and Roger's first name.

The fabric of their first novel is woven from their commitment to strong marital partnerships and first hand knowledge of the Caribbean. Their backgrounds as clinical social worker and psychologist respectively provide the depth and understanding of personality and motivation seen in A Dream Across Time.

Both were married previously and each brought two children to their second marriage. The challenges in their remarriage led them to become nationally recognized experts in stepfamily relationships and problems. Their joint clinical practice specialized in helping stepfamilies and led to their seminal work Stepfamilies: The Step By Step Model of Brief Therapy.

With changes in the mental health fields they decided to turn their efforts full time to the development of their Caribbean focused travel business IslandTrips.com. This business commitment along with the experience associated with home ownership in the Caribbean led to an ever growing fascination with the stories of the peoples of this region.

It seemed only natural to combine their commitment to love and family with their fascination for the Caribbean into works of fiction. A Dream Across Time is the beginning of the saga of a family with deep roots in the Caribbean.
Books: A Dream Across Time