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Monica McCarty

Goodreads Author

Born

in The United States

Website

http://www.monicamccarty.com

Genre

Romance

Member Since

July 2011

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What do you get when you mix a legal career, a baseball career, motherhood, and a love of history with a voracious reader? In my case, a Historical Romance Author.

Like most writers, I’ve always loved to read. Growing up in California there was always plenty to do outside, but all too often I could be found inside curled up with a book (or two or three). I started with the usual fare: The Little House on the Prairie series, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, Watership Down, Nancy Drew, and everything by Judy Blume. Once I cleared off my bookshelf, I started swiping books from my mom. Some, like Sidney Sheldon’s The Other Side of Midnight, probably weren’t the most appropriate choice for a pre-adolescent—although they were definitely illum What do you get when you mix a legal career, a baseball career, motherhood, and a love of history with a voracious reader? In my case, a Historical Romance Author.

Like most writers, I’ve always loved to read. Growing up in California there was always plenty to do outside, but all too often I could be found inside curled up with a book (or two or three). I started with the usual fare: The Little House on the Prairie series, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, Watership Down, Nancy Drew, and everything by Judy Blume. Once I cleared off my bookshelf, I started swiping books from my mom. Some, like Sidney Sheldon’s The Other Side of Midnight, probably weren’t the most appropriate choice for a pre-adolescent—although they were definitely illuminating. I can still remember the look of abject horror on my mom’s Catholic-girl-face when I asked her what a virgin was. After that rather brief conversation, she paid a little closer attention to what had disappeared off her book shelf, and steered me in the direction of Harlequin and Barbara Cartland romances. I was hooked. I quickly read through the inventory of the local library and was soon buying bags of romances at garage sales.

In high school, with the encouragement of my father (who I think was a little concerned about the steady diet of romances), I read over eighty of the Franklin Library’s One Hundred Greatest Books ever written—including Tolstoy, Confucius, Plato, and the entire works of Shakespeare. Some of them were tough going for a teenager, but the experience would prove an invaluable foundation for college. After reading War and Peace, I wasn’t easily intimidated.

For some reason Monica decided to go into writing and not fashion.

After graduation, I loaded up the VW (Jetta not Bus) and trekked down I-5 to attend the University of Southern California, majoring in Political Science and minoring in English (see why all that reading helped!). I joined the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, and when I wasn’t studying or at football games, did my best to support the local bartending industry. Ah, the good old days.

With that kind of fun, four years of college wasn’t quite enough. So leaving Tommy Trojan behind, I traveled back up north to Palo Alto for three more years of study at Stanford Law School. Once I survived the stress of the first semester, law school proved to be one of the best times of my life—garnering me a JD, life-long friends, a husband, and an unexpectedly intimate knowledge of baseball. (See “The Baseball Odyssey” below).

Law School was also where I fell in love with Scotland. In my third year, I took a Comparative Legal History class, and wrote a paper on the Scottish Clan System and Feudalism. So I immediately dropped out of law school and went on to write Scottish Historical Romances…well no, not quite. You see, I always knew I wanted to be a lawyer. My father was a lawyer, I was a “poet” (i.e., not into math), and I love to argue. It seemed natural.

So I finished law school, got married, passed the CA bar, moved to Minnesota (with a few stops along the way), waived into the MN bar, worked as a litigator for a few satisfying years, moved back to CA, had a couple of kids, realized that a legal career and being a single parent for most of the year (due to husband's career) would be extremely difficult, and THEN decided to sit down and write.

And how did I end up writing romance? It’s not as divergent as it seems. What I loved about being a lawyer are the same things I love about being a writer—research and writing. The only thing missing is the arguing, but that’s what a husband and kids are for, right? ...more

Combine Editions
Monica McCarty’s books

Average rating: 4.16 · 118,292 ratings · 7,925 reviews · 59 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Chief (Highland Guard, #1) 4.04 avg rating — 16,895 ratings — published 2010 — 34 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Hawk (Highland Guard, #2) 4.21 avg rating — 10,354 ratings — published 2010 — 37 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Highlander Untamed (MacLeods of Skye Trilogy, #1) 4.07 avg rating — 8,920 ratings — published 2007	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Ranger (Highland Guard, #3) 4.22 avg rating — 8,582 ratings — published 2010 — 27 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Viper (Highland Guard, #4) 4.28 avg rating — 7,609 ratings — 40 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Highland Warrior (Campbell Trilogy, #1) 4.05 avg rating — 6,162 ratings — published 2009 — 44 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Saint (Highland Guard, #5) 4.19 avg rating — 5,775 ratings — published 2012 — 29 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Recruit (Highland Guard, #6) 4.30 avg rating — 5,332 ratings — published 2012 — 27 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Highlander Unchained (MacLeods of Skye Trilogy, #3) 4.20 avg rating — 5,435 ratings — published 2007 — 31 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Highlander Unmasked (MacLeods of Skye Trilogy, #2) 4.10 avg rating — 4,895 ratings — published 2007 — 33 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Monica McCarty…

Series by Monica McCarty

Highland Guard (12 books)
by

Monica McCarty (Goodreads Author)

4.18 avg rating — 80,153 ratings

MacLeods of Skye Trilogy (3 books)
by

Monica McCarty (Goodreads Author)

4.12 avg rating — 19,581 ratings

Campbell Trilogy (3 books)
by

Monica McCarty (Goodreads Author)

4.14 avg rating — 14,705 ratings

The Rake (1 book)
by

Monica McCarty (Goodreads Author)

3.98 avg rating — 500 ratings

Quotes by Monica McCarty (?)

“Her eyes widened. “My.” She looked at him hesitantly and then bit her lip. “This might be more difficult than I realized. You’re a large man, aren’t you?” She blushed. “I mean, all over.”
He managed to nod. Yes, damn it. And getting excruciatingly larger by the minute.”
― Monica McCarty, Highlander Unmasked

tags: alex, highlander-unmasked, meg, monica-mccarty

22 likes

“She fit her hand around the curve of his whiskered jaw. “I’m sorry. But I knew you would not leave otherwise—”
“Damn right I would not have left,” he said gruffly. “Don’t you understand what you mean to me? You are everything. Never doubt that. My place is with you, only you.”
― Monica McCarty, Highlander Unmasked

tags: alex, highlander-unmasked, meg, monica-mccarty

22 likes

“She wanted to inhale him. Devour him.
Lick every inch of his incredible body.”
― Monica McCarty, Highland Outlaw

tags: elizabeth, highland-outlaw, monica-mccarty

18 likes

See all Monica McCarty's quotes »

Polls

Who is your favorite Highlander Romance author?

Julie Garwood

23 votes, 25.8%

Monica McCarty

21 votes, 23.6%

Karen Marie Moning

12 votes, 13.5%

Other - not listed (please tell us!)

11 votes, 12.4%

Hannah Howell

7 votes, 7.9%

Diana Gabaldon

5 votes, 5.6%

Amanda Scott

3 votes, 3.4%

Lynsay Sands

2 votes, 2.2%

Kresley Cole

2 votes, 2.2%

Dawn Halliday

1 vote, 1.1%

Michele Sinclair

1 vote, 1.1%

Karen Ranney

1 vote, 1.1%

Tess Mallory

0 votes, 0.0%

Veronica Wolff

0 votes, 0.0%

Arnette Lamb

0 votes, 0.0%

May McGoldrick

0 votes, 0.0%

Kinley MacGregor

0 votes, 0.0%

Haywood Smith

0 votes, 0.0%

89 total votes

38 comments

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