Penny Jordan was a storyteller long before she began to write romantic fiction. At the age of eight, she was creating serialized bedtime stories, featuring make-believe adventures, for her younger sister who was always the heroine.
After reading a serialized Mills & Boon book in a woman's magazine, she fell in love with the hero. Penny was eleven and she quickly became an avid fan.
Her goal, when writing romance fiction, is to provide readers with an enjoyment and involvement similar to that she experienced from her early reading. She likes nothing more than to hear her fans share her love: romance.
She works from home, in her kitchen, surrounded by four dogs and two cats, and welcomes interruptions from her friends and family.
Penny believes in the importance of love, including the benefits and happiness it brings. It's the special bonds linking Harlequin readers and writers that she personally treasures!
Born of Irish/Scottish parentage, Lynne Graham has lived in Northern Ireland all her life. She has one brother. She grew up in a seaside village and now lives in a country house surrounded by a woodland garden, which is wonderfully private.
Lynne first met her husband when she was 14. They married after she completed a degree at Edinburgh University. Lynne wrote her first book at 15 and it was rejected everywhere. She started writing again when she was at home with her first child. It took several attempts before she sold her first book and the delight of seeing that first book for sale in the local newsagents has never been forgotten.
Lynne always wanted a large family and has five children. Her eldest and her only natural child is 19 and currently at university. Her other children, who are every bit as dear to her heart, are adopted. She has two 9-year-olds adopted from Sri Lanka and a 3- and a 5-year-old adopted from Guatemala. In Lynne's home, there is a rich and diverse cultural mix, which adds a whole extra dimension of interest and discovery to family life.
The family has two pets. Thomas, a very large and affectionate black cat, bosses the dog and hunts rabbits. The dog is Daisy, an adorable but not very bright white West Highland terrier, who loves being chased by the cat. At night, dog and cat sleep together in front of the kitchen stove.
Lynne loves gardening, cooking, collects everything from old toys to rock specimens and is crazy about every aspect of Christmas.
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.
Susan trained to be a professional opera singer at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, U.K. During this time she was also a member of the BBC Northern Singers, who were broadcast regularly on radio as well as appearing in concerts nationwide. Whilst at college she won the Elsie Paine award for singing on three consecutive occasions and was subsequently granted a scholarship to study opera at Trinity College, London.
Susan was then offered a contract with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, where she remained for two years, leaving to present the BBC children's television program, Playschool. During this time Susan also appeared in pantomime and summer season, which led her to develop her own cabaret act.
Indulging in her great love of travel, Susan enjoyed a season on the QE2 before, on a second visit to Malta, she met her husband, Steve. Susan gave birth to two of her children, Sara and James, whilst living in Malta, but a move back to the U.K. came when Sara was taken dangerously ill and rushed into hospital by powerboat ambulance during a family holiday to Venice. Susan's first book, Help Me Mummy, I Can't Breathe, was written to share Sara's experience with other parents and received favorable reviews in both The Lancet and Nursing Times. It was also adopted as teaching material at St James' Hospital, Leeds, where the family settled. Susan gave many talks on the subject of coping with asthmatic children, culminating in a talk at Westminster Hall during celebrations of the Asthma Society's Diamond Jubilee.
Susan had another little girl, Leonie, and when York University opened its crèche, the time seemed right to go back into education. Susan was awarded an MA in music, after which she began teaching full-time. She was appointed a magistrate on the Leeds bench and now sits in Stockport. She wrote three books for educational publisher Hodder&Stoughton, Teach Yourself Singing, Teach Yourself Opera and Teach Yourself Musicals.
The next move occurred when Steve's work took him to Cheshire. After dinner at a Pride and Prejudice ball there was a charity auction. One of the lots on offer was "Spend a Day with an Author," donated by Penny Jordan. Steve bought this lot for Susan and the rest is history.... Penny became not just a really great friend, but also a wonderful mentor whose encouragement led Susan to concentrate on writing romance for Harlequin Mills&Boon.
Sarah was born in Wiltshire and started writing at the age of eight when she produced an autobiography of her hamster.
At the age of 18 she travelled to London to train as a nurse in one of London's top teaching hospitals, and she describes what happened in those years as extremely happy and definitely censored!
She worked in a number of areas after she qualified, but her favourite was A&E where she found the work stimulating and fun. Nowhere else in the hospital environment did she encounter such good teamwork between doctors and nurses.
By now her interests had moved on from hamsters to men, and she started writing romance fiction.
Her first completed manuscript, written after the birth of her first child, was rejected by Mills & Boon, but the comments were encouraging, so she tried again, and on the third attempt her manuscript Worth the Risk was accepted unchanged. She describes receiving the acceptance letter as one of the best moments of her life, after meeting her husband and having her two children.
Sarah still works part-time in a health-related industry and spends the rest of the time with her family trying to squeeze in writing whenever she can. She is an enthusiastic skier and walker and loves outdoor life.
Carol was born in England to Scottish parents, which meant many long, happy summer holidays spent in Scotland with her two sisters.
The only thing a secretarial course taught her was that she didn't want to work in an office. Applying to do her nursing training, she was advised to write the entrance test for the three-year State Registered Nurse Course, but at 18, the two-year State Enrolled Nurse program sounded more attractive. Anyway, if she liked it she could always make up the time later, couldn't she? How simple it all sounded.
On completion of her training, she worked for five years in a phenomenally busy Accident and Emergency Department, which she adored. However, itchy feet got the better of her and she headed off for a year in Australia with her younger sister.
Six weeks before she came home Carol met her future husband. Proof, she says, that whirlwind holiday romances can work. An extremely expensive courtship followed. Long letters, longer telephone calls, and even longer air flights, until finally they married and settled in Melbourne, Australia.
Now seemed the perfect time to get her nursing on track, and she applied and was accepted to do her Bachelor of Nursing. However, a vague feeling of nausea on enrollment day was to change all that. Surely she could combine university with one tiny baby, couldn't she? After all, how much work could it be?
Through all of this the desire to write a romance was there and many a night was spent bashing away at the typewriter, and later the computer, but it was so much harder than it first looked and she never managed to quite finish it....
While pregnant with her second child, a brilliantstory line came to her. The first book was unceremoniously shelved and she worked hard on her masterpiece. Finally, she plucked up the courage to submit and smugly awaited its acceptance. Of course, it was rejected and, in truth, it was absolutely awful, but an encouraging letter pointing out where she had gone wrong (it was a long letter) kept the writing bug alive.
Six months after the birth of her third child, the sudden death of her father, and its painful aftermath forced her to reappraise her life's goals. Her father had never been one to waste a moment, and realizing what a precious gift life was and with her husband's encouragement, Carol decided to seize the day. The initial manuscript was taken down, dusted off, revamped, relocated, and rewritten and finally, after the longest time, accepted.
Now she is happy to concentrate mainly on writing, though she will always nurse. The ambition to do a Bachelor of Nursing has been replaced by a desire to do a Bachelor of Midwifery and she is awaiting the implementation of the course in Australia. She remains quietly confident that she can somehow combine family, writing, study, and nursing. After all, how hard could it be?
