Bankrate: It must have been a difficult transition to stay-at-home mom.

Graham: It was funny because when I stayed home and we had the three kids and oh well, this is what I'm going to do, it was kind of like, what did I spend all those years doing? But things really do serve you well in one way or another because I've never been afraid to speak in public, never been uncomfortable in an interview. It's like, oh God, I did it for something! When I stopped, it was really hard because we were used to a couple of incomes. I always knew it would somehow work out because I started to write when my third son was actually born and I made my first advance in time for my daughter to be born.

Bankrate: Did you have the writing bug as a kid?

Graham: No. I love to read. I had a small scholarship in college for a writing project. It was something I had done before but probably not something I knew I wanted to do. I absolutely love to read. Both of my parents were avid readers so that was instilled. The one thing that most successful writers all have in common is that they absolutely love to read.

Bankrate: You have written primarily in two genres that would seem to be polar opposites -- horror and romance. How does that work?

Graham: (Laughs) It was strange because my main publisher, Mira, is owned by Harlequin, and I thought starting out that the last thing in the world I would want to write is a Harlequin romance. But that's because of the way things were at the time, because back then, it was usually a young, innocent 21-year-old running around Europe who fell in love with the count who was 40-something and owned a vineyard. And when I was starting out, it was, oh my God, what did she want with that decrepit old man?! Why didn't she really have any goals of her own? And just as I was getting in, things were coming up to date and changing, and I think that's how I got into being so prolific. It was just a huge boom and you just couldn't write fast enough.

Bankrate: How did you acquire a taste for horror?

Graham: I think it was because some of the things I had seen were just so good. I do vampire books but I also do a ghost series, and I think it's just the possibilities of what is out there. The other thing is, there really is no expert; there is really no one who knows all there is to know about vampires or who is the final word on ghosts. That allows you to use an awful lot of the what-ifs and could-bes, that type of thing. I think that is so attractive to an author.

Bankrate: You also have some great haunts for ghosts in St. Augustine and Key West, Fla.