Hoag was born in Cresco, Iowa and raised in the small town of Harmony, Minnesota, where her father sold insurance.
[3] Before publishing her first novel, she also worked as a photographer's assistant, trained show horses, and sold designer bathroom accessories.
[1] Hoag began her career as an author in 1988, writing category romances for the Bantam Books Loveswept Line.
[4] Her novel Night Sins became a TV miniseries starring Valerie Bertinelli and Harry Hamlin.
[4] Hoag and three other authors who made the leap from romance to thrillers at roughly the same time (Eileen Dreyer, Elizabeth Grayson, and Kimberly Cates) have formed a group they call the Divas.