Robyn was born on 1940 in Northland, New Zealand. She was the oldest child in her family, and as a child, she thrilled her four sisters and one brother with bloodcurdling adventure tales, usually very like the latest book she'd borrowed from the library. Robyn owes her writing career to two illnesses. The first was a younger sister's flu. She was living with her husband and Robyn and spent most of that winter acquiring, suffering, and recovering from various infections. One day she croaked that she had read everything on Robyn's bookshelves, so would Robyn please buy her something cheerful and sustaining. Robyn found three paperbacks- one Mills and Boon Modern Romance novel and a couple of other romances. Robyn read them, too, of course, and so enjoyed them she spent the next couple of years hunting down more Mills and Boon books. This was much more difficult then than it is today, so she decided to write her own, and for the following busy 10 years she wrote and hoped that one day she would finish a manuscript good enough that was good enough to send to a publisher. The second illness was her husband's, and it was bad a heart attack. He was so young it terrified them all. While he was recovering, he suggested that Robyn finish the manuscript she was writing and send it off. It wasn't a perfect manuscript, but the doctor had said to humour her husband, so she finished the manuscript, edited it as best she could, and sent it off. Three months later, she was astounded to read a letter from the editor saying that if She made a few revisions they would buy her novel Bride at Whangatapu. Published since 1977, Robyn sees her readers as intelligent women who insist on accurate backgrounds, so she spends time researching as well as writing.Robyn Donald sometimes thinks that writing is much like gardening. It's a similar process creating landscapes for the mind and emotions from the seeds of ideas and dreams and images. Both activities can also lead to moments of extreme delight, moments of total despair, and backache.Now Robyn lives in the Bay Islands. She continues writing, and also finds time for a very supportive husband, two adult children and their partners, a granddaughter and her mother, not to mention the member of the family that keeps her fit - a loud, cheerful, and ruthlessly determined "almost" Labradordog.

Cara Colter was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, surrounded by ranches, but she was always a reluctant city girl. A journalism graduate, she has been making her living with words for her entire adult life. Before published her first romance novel in 1987, she wrote educational materials, newspaper stories, magazine articles and even sermons! "I am living proof that dreams come true," Cara says. "I am an ordinary person leading an extraordinary life." Now she lives on a small acreage in British Columbia. She shares her life with her personal hero, Rob, a cat and eight horses. She has three grown children, and already is a granmother.

Rebecca Winters, an American writer and mother of four, lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. When she was 17, she went to boarding school in Lausanne, Switzerland, where she learned to speak French and met girls from all over the world. Upon returning to the U.S., Rebecca developed her love of languages when she earned her B.A. in secondary education, history, French, and Spanish from the University of Utah and did postgraduate work in Arabic. Because of her studies overseas, Rebecca decided to become a teacher and studied French and history at her alma mater in Utah. For the past 15 years, she's taught junior-high and high-school French and history, and says she got into serious writing almost by accident. "I went through a back door to begin my writing career," she says. "In the first place, I never liked to write anything—I only wrote mandatory papers for school. If anyone had told me I would become a writer, let alone love it, I would have laughed and dismissed the notion as absolutely absurd and preposterous. "Having said that, I did write letters to my parents while I was away at boarding school when I was 17. My mother kept them and one day, after I had become a mother for the second time, she sent me all my old letters and asked me to write my memories from them for posterity. At the time I thought she was insane, but because I adore my mother I did as she asked. "By the time I’d finished sorting through all those teenage thoughts, observations and opinions, the seeds of a story had begun to form in my mind. The seed eventually became a novel and was published in 1979. It was called The Loving Season, published under the name Rebecca Burton. Naturally, it takes place in Switzerland and France. "As soon as I finished that novel, I found myself wanting to start another novel entitled By Love Divided, a World War II romance. A few years later, Harlequin bought a novel, Blind to Love, a story that takes place in Kenya. It’s been a love affair ever since. "I guess the moral of the story is, never underestimate a mother’s intuition!" As Rebecca has kept writing, her talents have not gone unrecognized. She has won the National Readers' Choice Award, the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, and has been named Utah Writer of the Year. Right now, Rebecca is working her way toward her 50th novel for Harlequin.

Penelope Jones Halsall aka Caroline Courtney, Annie Groves, Lydia Hitchcock, Melinda Wright Penelope "Penny" Jones was born on November 24, 1946 at about seven pounds in a nursing home in Preston, Lancashire, England. She was the first child of Anthony Winn Jones, an engineer, who died at 85, and his wife Margaret Louise Groves Jones. She has a brother, Anthony, and a sister, Prudence "Pru". She had been a keen reader from the childhood - her mother used to leave her in the children's section of their local library whilst she changed her father's library books. She 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 Prue, who was always the heroine. At eleven, she fell in love with Mills & Boon, and with their heroes. In those days the books could only be obtained via private lending libraries, and she quickly became a devoted fan; she was thrilled to bits when the books went on full sale in shops and she could have them for keeps. Penny left grammar school in Rochdale with O-Levels in English Language, English Literature and Geography. She first discovered Mills & Boon books, via a girl she worked with. She married Steve Halsall, an accountant and a "lovely man", who smoked and drank too heavily, and suffered oral cancer with bravery and dignity. Her husband bought her the small electric typewriter on which she typed her first novels, at a time when he could ill afford it. He died at the beginning of 21st century. She earned a living as a writer since the 1970s when, as a shorthand typist, she entered a competition run by the Romantic Novelists' Association. Although she didn't win, Penny found an agent who was looking for a new Georgette Heyer. She published four regency novels as Caroline Courtney, before changing her nom de plume to Melinda Wright for three air-hostess romps and then she wrote two thrillers as Lydia Hitchcock. Soon after that, Mills and Boon accepted her first novel for them, Falcon's Prey as Penny Jordan. However, for her more historical romance novels, she adopted her mother's maiden-name to become Annie Groves. Almost 70 of her 167 Mills and Boon novels have been sold worldwide. Penny Halsall lived in a neo-Georgian house in Nantwich, Cheshire, with her Alsatian Sheba and cat Posh. She worked from home, in her kitchen, surrounded by her pets, and welcomed interruptions from her friends and family.

Aka Helen Conrad and Jena Hunt Helen Conrad was born on April 11, 1945 in Pasadena, California, U.S.A. and grew up between Holland, Guam, and California, and spent a few years in Washington, D.C. as well. She obtained a B.A. in English Literature. Helen was working toward a Master's in Library Science when she dropped out to have her first son. "One look into those baby blue eyes and I knew it was going to be a long time before I went back to school. But with young ones, you do have time to read, and the more I read, the more I learned about writing". She started writing because she felt guilty about spending so much time reading. "Through writing I figured I could still immerse myself in the stories I love, but I could actually claim I was working! The amazing thing was when I sold my first book and the excuse was justified. Dreams really do come true!" After years of writing romantic suspense in the style of Mary Stewart and children's books in a lot of styles, she finally sold a romance to Jove's Second Chance at Love and there was celebration all around-at least in her ever-patient family of husband and four boys. She published four more romances for Jove under the name Jena Hunt, then began writing Silhouette Desires. A few sales to Bantam Loveswept and Harlequin Romance, Temptationand SuperRomance under the name Helen Conrad followed, as well as to Harpers, Dell Ecstasy, Mills & Boon, and even an historical with Zebra. Today, she is concentrating on Silhouette Romance, completely captivated by the breezy fun and touching poignancy of their compact, to-the-point form. She feels the perfect "quick read" should make the reader smile, sigh and put the book down feeling better about the state of love in the world. Now, she lives in the Los Angeles area now with Nick, her geologist-computers cientist husband and the two of her four sons who still live at home."Having the boys around helps keep me up on the current trends," she says with a laugh. "But writing helps keep me in touch with the romance that weaves through the everyday lives we all live.

About Sarah USA Today and Sunday Times bestselling author Sarah Morgan writes romance and contemporary women's fiction and her trademark humour and warmth have gained her fans across the globe. Sarah lives near London, England, and when she isn't reading or writing she loves being outdoors. THE ISLAND VILLA (Title SUMMER WEDDING in the UK) is out now! Watch out for Sarah's next Christmas novel, THE BOOK CLUB HOTEL (title THE CHRISTMAS BOOK CLUB in the UK) coming September. Join Sarah on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorSarahM... Follow Sarah on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SarahMorgan\_ Follow Sarah on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahmorgan... Follow Sarah on Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/SarahMorgan\_/ Website: www.sarahmorgan.com Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.