Tim Cope

In 1736, Bakhchisaray had been burned to the ground by the Russians, and when Catherine II's army completed the conquest of the peninsula in 1783, the last khan, Sahin Giray, took refuge in Turkey, where he was eventually executed.

Bakhchisaray was formerly the capital of the Crimean khanate and once an important crossroad of the Silk Road, where traders met from across the Black Sea, the steppes of Central Asia, Russia, and eastern Europe.

Had I not stepped into the saddle in the first place, entire cultures, histories, and most importantly, profound connections with people and animals whom I now counted as my friends would have otherwise passed by, invisible.

I sold my first short story while I was home on maternity leave, then began working on novels. Since I was reading and enjoying romance novels at the time, the first two unpublished manuscripts I wrote were both romances. I sold my third novel, 'Call After Midnight,' to Harlequin Intrigue after submitting it unagented.

We need to have a national security that puts steel in front of our enemies. I would send weapons to Ukraine. I would work with NATO to put forces on the eastern border of Poland and the Baltic nations, and I would reinstate, put in place back in the missile defense system that we had in Poland and in the Czech Republic.