Green Shield Publishing had one romance writer that was bringing in some pretty good sales. She was Dora Jean Bryant, an old friend of Otto Greenfield's mother. Dora was in her mid sixties when she started writing and had a real knack for historical romances. 

One of her books was released on the same day as the latest Bennett mystery. Dora Jean's story was about an English countess, Lady Falsworth who was sleeping with practically every nobleman in her village. She also managed to solve a murder in the book. When the first week sales figures came out Lady Falsworth outsold King Bennett. Dora Jean was relentless in letting Dean know her book outsold his. Of course, in the end, Dean's book eventually surpassed Dora Jean's with over a million copies sold. But that didn't matter to her. That first week's victory was hers to treasure. She kept saying that she could write a mystery, but that Dean couldn't write a romance. Dean took the challenge and had Otto agree to his writing a romance novel.

Dean's feelings on relationships were purely from a guy's perspective. "Everybody really wants the same thing out of life," he said. "They want to feel love, to be loved, and feel needed. The only difference is women show their feelings through talking and cuddling and men show theirs through raw animal lust. To write a best selling romance novel all I have to do is reverse the gender roles. How hard can that be?"

His theory proved true. Six months later Blame Cupid went on sale and sold more than double of Dora Jean's latest title. He went on to write three more romances in his career.

Dean obviously would use a pen name while writing these tales. "I wanted the name to be classy as hell", he said. "The most classy lady I could remember was my second grade teacher, Elizabeth Sheridan. Okay, so I was seven years old....and I did have a crush on her, ha ha ha! Anyway, I wanted my new pseudonym to have a third name just like Dora's. I was sitting in my kitchen and I saw a box of crackers. I figured Ritz would be perfect. The box of crackers was actually a different brand, but I didn't think Elizabeth Sheridan Saltines sounded right."