A native Northwesterner with the pale skin to prove it, STEFANIE SLOANE credits her parents’ eclectic reading habits—not to mention their decision to live in the middle of nowhere—for her love of books. A childhood spent lost in the pages of countless novels led her to college, where she majored in English. No one was more surprised than Sloane when she actually put her degree to use, landing a job in Amazon.com’s editorial department. She spent more than five years reading for a living before retiring to concentrate on her own stories. Stefanie Sloane lives with her family in Seattle.