Barbara Samuel (O’Neal)
Barbara Samuel (O’Neal) has won the highly prestigious RITA award from Romance Writers of America 7 times and has been recently inducted into the RWA Hall of Fame. She has written eleven novels of women’s fiction, about dogs and food, families and second chances. She lives in the stunningly beautiful city of Colorado Springs with her beloved, a British endurance athlete who vows he’ll never lose his accent. She attempts to garden despite hail and blizzards and the thin mountain air, and loves to travel, teaching and hiking and eating lots of great food.
She loves to hear from readers and you may email her at using the contact page or directly at BarbaraONeal [at] Gmail [dot] com
About the Dogs in the Books

Jack
Not every dog in every one of my books is a dog I know, but most are.
Not every animal in every one of my books is a dog I know, but most are.
Elena’s dog Alvin, in The Lost Recipe for Happiness, is a very special friend of mine, Jack, one of the most beloved dogs in my life. He showed up as a five-week-old puppy, abandoned on the highway, at a moment when I felt abandoned and lost myself. We traveled in a deeply bonded pair of two.
Merlin, in How to Bake a Perfect Life, has now moved to the great playground in the sky, but he was my brother’s dog for 16 years, and he really was a hobo and escape artist, and one of my favorite dogs of all time.