NM: Jane Austen. We could have been good friends, I just know it. I can imagine sitting out in a garden with her, brainstorming some romance and laughing and making up characters—trying to one-up each other with a new and improved Mr. Darcy.

AJ: Who is your favorite author and is your writing style similar to theirs?

NM: I like Stephen King a lot because of his imagination and characterization. I’ve learned a lot about how to create characters from his books. So though the content of my books is far different from King’s, the use of a lot of unique characters is the same.

AJ: What’s your favorite part of a book?

NM: Being done. Old joke. Actually, I like editing, making it better. After the months and months of the writing process, it’s like taking a fresh breath. The hardest part of writing is getting the first third of a book down. I don’t know the characters yet and it’s a struggle. Yet once I know them and feel at ease in letting them loose to do their own thing, the writing starts to flow.

AJ: What inspired you to write historical works?

NM: The event that opened my eyes to Nannerl Mozart’s life story happened while I was standing in the Mozart family home in Salzburg in the summer of 2004—that little three-room apartment where both Wolfgang and Nannerl were born. In truth, I was only half-listening to the guide, being very close to tourist-information overload. Yet one statement reached into my weary brain and ignited it: Most people don’t know this, but Mozart’s sister was just as talented as he was, but because she was a woman, she had little chance to do anything with her talent. That one statement stayed with me all the way home to the States.

At the time I was putting together a proposal for a contemporary novel (I only wrote novels set in the present day.) Because of the tour guide’s comment, I got the idea to have one of my characters write a book called “Mozart’s Sister”. My agent sent the proposal to publishers.

Within days we got a call from Dave Horton, an editor at Bethany House Publishers. “I don’t want the contemporary book, I want the book the character is writing: Mozart’s Sister, an historical book about the sister’s life.”

“But I don’t write historicals.”

“I want Mozart’s Sister.”

“But I don’t write in first-person, in one person’s point-of-view throughout an entire book. I write big-cast novels in third person.”

“I want Mozart’s Sister.”

“I hate research.”

“I want Mozart’s Sister.”

Well then. He seemed so sure, so excited. I could not ignore him—actually, I could, but I didn’t.

The rest is … literally history. I’ve written a biographical novel on Nannerl, Jane Austen, Martha Washington, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

AJ: If you could meet any Historical figure who would it be? And why?

NM: Queen Elizabeth I. She was such a woman ahead of her time—living in a ruthless time. In many ways I think she was one of the first women to have to juggle a personal life with a career. She took England from chaos into peace.

AJ: What do you consider to be your best accomplishment?

NM: My family. My husband and I have been married 33 years. Our three kids have turned out great and we have three lovely grandchildren. They all live close, so being together for family events—and them wanting to be together—is true happiness.