Chantelle Shaw grew up in London and enjoyed a blissfully happy childhood making up stories in her head. Unsurprisingly, English was her favorite subject at school, but math and anything remotely technical remain a complete mystery to her! She worked as a secretary and PA, and at twenty married the wonderful man she had fallen in love when they were both teenagers. With the birth of her first child the family moved to the Kent coast and Chantelle became a stay-at-home mum to her ever-growing family that now includes six children, a dog and various other pets.

Always an avid reader, Chantelle discovered Mills&Boon romances as a teenager, and during the "nocturnal years" when her children refused to sleep she would pace the floor with a baby in one hand and a book in the other! In her tiny amount of free time she began scribbling stories of her own, and although Mills&Boon rejected these, she received encouragement and advice from the editors to try again. However, the demands of trying to juggle family, home and a variety of part-time jobs (including night-work--she had given up on sleeping by then!) meant that it was easier to write books in her head rather than put pen to paper.

It wasn't until twenty years after her first attempts at writing, when she was struggling to cope with the death of her adored mum, that Chantelle was inspired to try again. She found that retreating into the fantasy world inside her head was the only way to deal with her sadness, and she wanted to honor her mum who had always believed she would one day become a published writer.

To this day Chantelle enjoys romantic fiction because it offers an escape into a fantasy world of glamour, excitement and, of course, gorgeous men! She hopes that the books she writes give readers the same sense of enjoyment and relaxation. She likes to create strong, sexy heroes and even stronger-willed, independent heroines who ultimately find the love and happiness she has been lucky enough to have in her life. Writing takes up most of her spare time, but she also enjoys gardening and walking. Unfortunately, she doesn't find housework and cooking so pleasurable!

Miranda Lee was born at Port Macquarie, a popular seaside town on the Mid-North Coast of New South Wales, Australia, and is the youngest of four children. Her father was a country school teacher and brilliant sportsman. Her mother was a talented dressmaker. When Miranda was ten, her father was transferred to Gosford, another coastal town in the countryside, much closer to Sydney.

After leaving her convent school, Miranda briefly studied the cello before moving to Sydney, where she embraced the emerging world of computers. Her career as a programmer ended after she married, had three daughters and bought a small acreage in a semi-rural community.

Following this, Miranda attempted greyhound training, as well as horse and goat breeding, but was left dissatisfied. She yearned to find a creative career from which she could earn money. When her sister suggested writing romances, it seemed like a good idea. She could do it at home, and it might even be fun!

It took a decade of trial and error before her first romance, After the Affair, was accepted and published. At that time, Miranda, her husband, and her three daughters had moved back to the Central Coast, where they could enjoy the sun and the surf lifestyle once again.

Not long into her writing career, Miranda committed herself to writing a six-book series entitled, The Hearts of Fire, with a deadline of just nine short months. Bravely, her husband left his executive position to stay home and support Miranda's writing career. He learned to cook and to clean, two invaluable household skills.

Numerous successful stories followed, each embodying Miranda's trademark style: pacy and sexy rhythms; passionate, real-life characters; and enduring, memorable story lines. She has one credo when writing romances: Don't bore the reader! Millions of fans world-wide agree she never does.

Sandra Marton wrote her first novel while she was still in elementary school. Her doting parents told her she'd be a writer someday and Sandra believed them. In high school and college, she wrote dark poetry nobody but her boyfriend understood, though looking back, she suspects he was just being kind. As a wife and mother, she wrote murky short stories in what little spare time she could manage, but not even her boyfriend-turned-husband could pretend to understand those. Sandra tried her hand at other things, among them teaching and serving on the Board of Education in her hometown, but the dream of becoming a writer was always in her heart.

At last, Sandra realized she wanted to write books about what all women hope to find: love with that one special man, love that's rich with fire and passion, love that lasts forever. She wrote a novel, her very first, and sold it to the Harlequin Presents line. Since then, she's written more than sixty books, all of them featuring the sexy, gorgeous, larger-than-life heroes that have helped make Sandra one of the Presents line's bestselling authors. A four-time RITA Award finalist, she's also received six Romantic Times magazine awards for Best Harlequin Presents of the Year and has been honored with Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for Series Romance. Sandra lives with her very own sexy, gorgeous, larger-than-life hero in a sun-filled house on a quiet country lane in the northeastern United States.

Though lacking much authentic Welsh blood, Kim Lawrence comes from English/Irish stock. She was born and brought up in North Wales. She returned there when she married, and her sons were both born on Anglesey, an island off the coast. Though not isolated, Anglesey is a little off the beaten track, but lively Dublin, which Kim loves, is only a short ferry ride away.

Today they live on the farm her husband was brought up on. Welsh is the first language of many people in this area and Kim's husband and sons are all bilingual--she is having a lot of fun, not to mention a few headaches, trying to learn the language!

With small children, the unsocial hours of nursing didn't look attractive so encouraged by a husband who thinks she can do anything she sets her mind to, Kim tried her hand at writing. Always a keen Harlequin Mills & Boon reader, it seemed natural for her to write a romance novel--now she can't imagine doing anything else.

She is a keen gardener and cook and enjoys running--often on the beach, as living on an island the sea is never very far away. She is usually accompanied by her Jack Russell, Sprout--don't ask, it's long story!

RITA Award-winner Anne McAllister was born in California, spent formative summer vacations on the beach near her home and on her grandparents' small ranch in Colorado and visiting relatives in Montana. Studying the cowboys, the surfers and the beach volleyball players, she spent long hours developing her concept of "the perfect hero." (Have you noticed a lack of hard-driving Type A businessmen among them? Well, she promises to do one soon, just for a change!).

One thing she did do, early on, was develop a weakness for lean, dark-haired, handsome lone-wolf type guys. When she finally found one, he was in the university library where she was working at the time. It didn't matter. She knew a good man when she saw one.

And they've now been sharing "happily ever afters" for 32 years. They presently have four children, four dogs, and one bionic cat who, contrary to all expectations, is working on his second millennium.

Quite a few years ago they moved to the Midwest, but they spend more and more time in Montana. And as Anne says, she lives there in her head most of the time anyway. She wishes a small town like her very own Elmer, Montana, existed. She'd move there in a minute.

Before she started writing romances, Anne taught Spanish, capped deodorant bottles copyedited textbooks, got a master's degree in theology, and ghostwrote sermons.

It all became grist for the fictional mill--as has the family history she likes to learn more about every chance she gets. She might have to try her hand at that historical, after all--especially now that she's learned more about that second great-grandfather who claims to have shot 40 men!

In the meantime, though, she is planning more contemporary Code of the West books for Desire and Special Edition, as well as a single-title Code of the West book coming in early 2002, and a trilogy for Harlequin Presents beginning in August 2000. Keep your eye on both series as characters from each are going to start popping up in each other's books!

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