Tanya Anne Crosby is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thirty novels. She has been featured in magazines, such as People, Romantic Times and Publisher’s Weekly, and her books have been translated into eight languages. Her first novel was published in 1992 by Avon Books, where Tanya was hailed as “one of Avon’s fastest rising stars.” Her fourth book was chosen to launch the company’s Avon Romantic Treasure imprint. Known for stories charged with emotion and humor and filled with flawed characters Tanya is an award-winning author, journalist, and editor, and her novels have garnered reader praise and glowing critical reviews. She and her writer husband split their time between Charleston, SC, where she was raised, and northern Michigan, where the couple make their home.

Growing up in Joliet, Illinois, Samantha James had many childhood aspirations—being a writer was never one of them. When she was ten, she was certain she was destined to be an astronomer. That soon changed (happened a lot during those pre-teen years!) when she decided archaeology was in her future. Detective work was her next goal, thanks to the Trixie Belden mysteries she was reading, and before long, nursing beckoned (courtesy of the Cherry Ames series). In college, she set her sights on teaching history, then briefly entertained the notion of becoming a flight attendant, only to discover she did not like to fly. Having been raised in a family of avid readers, she was rarely without a book in hand. Her tastes were rather eclectic. She got hooked on the Doc Savage series and Edgar Rice Burroughs after her older brother finished them, in her teen years, moved on to Agatha Christie, Daphne DuMaurier, and Phyllis A. Whitney. In the meantime, the right guy came along. They met on a semi-blind date at an office Christmas party. She was told he wanted to go out with her, and he was told she wanted to go out with him. Six months later, the U.S. Army shipped him off to Germany—and she wrote faithfully at least three times a week—she often jokes this was the start of her writing career! Marriage followed, as well as three daughters. Samantha left the detective work to her husband and turned her attention to raising their girls. When her youngest was six months old, two things happened: 1) she read Moonstruck Madness by Laurie McBain and scrambled to find every historical romance she could lay her hands on; 2) her older brother revealed he was writing and submitting his short stories to big-name magazines. As he put it, "I've been rejected by the best of 'em." The seed was planted. Rejection was a dreaded word, but Samantha figured, "Well, if he can take it, so can I." That summer, she wrote not one book, but three—longhand, in a notebook, during naptime. Bedtime. Any time she could. The burning desire to write was a long time in coming—she was nearing thirty by then—but she discovered that once she set pen to paper, she couldn't stop. Those three manuscripts did get the dreaded rejection letter (they're still languishing somewhere in her attic), but she finally hit pay dirt with her fourth. Samantha's brother promptly proposed collaborating on a fantasy together—alas, still unwritten... Nowadays, she's firmly convinced she's the queen of rejected titles for her books. She's only managed to retain two original titles thus far, but writing is indeed a dream come true... To date, her books have been published in numerous foreign countries (her daughters' number one choice for show-and-tell were always the foreign editions of Mom's books). Known for her heartfelt, emotionally charged "three-hanky reads", her books have been nominated for numerous awards, and have consistently hit the bestseller lists. Maybe someday she'll do that fantasy-romance collaboration with her brother. For now, she's having a great time spinning dramatic, passionate tales of old...

Mary Josephine Dunn was born 22 September 1947 in Lancashire, England, UK. At the age of eleven she went to an all-girls boarding school, Layton Hill Convent, Blackpool. At sixteen, she wrote her first romance, with a medieval setting, completed in installments in an exercise book. From 1966 to 1970, she obtained a degree in English history from Keele University in Staffordshire, where she met her future husband, Ken Beverley. After graduation, they married on June 24, 1971. She quickly attained a position as a youth employment officer until 1976, working first in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, and then in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire. In 1976, her scientist husband was invited to do post-doctoral research at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. When her professional qualifications proved not to be usable in the Canadian labour market, she raised their two sons and started to write her first romances. Moved to Ottawa, in 1985 she became a founding member of the Ottawa Romance Writers’ Association, that her “nurturing community” for the next twelve years. The same year, she completed a regency romance, but it was promptly rejected by a number of publishers, and she settled more earnestly to learning the craft. In 1988, it sold to Walker, and was published as "Lord Wraybourne's Betrothed". She regularly appears on bestseller lists including the USA Today overall bestseller list, the New York Times, and and the Publishers Weekly list. She has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Golden Leaf, the Award of Excellence, the National Readers Choice, and a two Career Achievement awards from Romantic Times. She is also a five time winner of the RITA, the top award of the Romance Writers Of America, and a member of their Hall of Fame and Honor Roll. Jo Beverley passed away on May 23, 2016 after a long battle with cancer.

Kathleen Erin Hogg was born on June 3, 1939, in Alexandria, Louisiana, she was the youngest of eight siblings by Gladys (Coker) and Charles Wingrove Hogg, a disabled World War I veteran. She long relished creating original narratives, and by age 6 was telling herself stories at night to help herself fall asleep. At age 16, she met U.S. Air Force Second Lieutenant Ross Eugene Woodiwiss at a dance, and they married the following year. She wrote her first book in longhand while living at a military outpost in Japan. She is credited with the invention of the modern historical romance novel: In 1972 she released The Flame and the Flower, an instant New York Times bestseller that created a literary precedent. The novel revolutionized mainstream publishing, featuring an epic historical romance with a strong heroine and impassioned sex scenes. The Flame and the Flower was rejected by agents and hardcover publishers, who deemed it as "too long" at 600 pages. Rather than follow the advice of the rejection letters and rewrite the novel, she instead submitted it to paperback publishers. The first publisher on her list, Avon, quickly purchased the novel and arranged an initial 500,000 print run. The novel sold over 2.3 million copies in its first four years of publication. The success of The Flame and the Flower prompted a new style of writing romance, concentrating primarily on historical fiction tracking the monogamous relationship between a helpless heroines and the hero who rescued her, even if he had been the one to place her in danger. The romance novels which followed in her example featured longer plots, more controversial situations and characters, and more intimate and steamy sex scenes. She was an avid horse rider who at one time lived in a large home on 55 acres (220,000 m2) in Minnesota. After her husband's death in 1996, she moved back to Louisiana. She died in a hospital on July 6, 2007 in Princeton, Minnesota, aged 68, from cancer. She was survived by two sons, Sean and Heath, their wives, and numerous grandchildren. Her third son, Dorren, predeceased her.