Like her protagonist Rosaria in Buried Troubles, Marian McMahon Stanley enjoyed a long international corporate career with a Fortune 500 company and, more recently, a senior position at a large, urban university in Boston. She is the mother of four adult children and a growing number of grandchildren. Marian writes in a small, bookish, historical town west of Boston and on Cape Ann in Gloucester, the nation’s oldest seaport. She lives with her husband Bill and — just as in the story — a Westie named Archie.