Authors

V.C. Andrews

V. C. Andrews - vcandrewsbooks.com Cleo Virginia Andrews, better known as V. C. Andrews or Virginia C. Andrews, was an American novelist. She was born in Portsmouth, Virginia. Andrews died of breast cancer at the age of 63. Andrews' novels combine Gothic horror and family saga, revolving around family secrets and forbidden love, and sometimes include a rags-to-riches story.Wikipedia Born:Cleo Virginia Andrews, Jun 6, 1923, Portsmouth, Virginia, U.S. Died:Dec 19, 1986, Virginia Beach, Virginia, U.S. Occupation:Novelist

106 books

Robyn Donald

Robyn Elaine Donald was born on 14 August 1940 in Northland, New Zealand, she was the oldest 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. She married and worked as teacher during years. Robyn owes her writing career to two illnesses. The first was a younger sister's flu. Her sister was living with her husband and her 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 She please buy her something cheerful and sustaining. Robyn found three paperbacks one Mills & 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 & 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'd finish a manuscript good enough to send off. 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 him, so she finished it, edited it as best she could, and sent it off. Three months later, she was astounded to read a letter from the Mills & Boon saying that if she made a few revisions they would buy her novel Bride at Whangatapu. Published since 1977, Robyn left teaching to become a full-time writer after her first three books had been accepted. Robyn sees her readers as intelligent women who insist on accurate backgrounds, so she spends time researching as well as writing. She 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 is living 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" Labrador dog. If you'd like to contact her, Robyn Donald can be reached at: P.O. Box 18240, Glen Innes, Auckland, New Zealand.

105 books

Cathy Williams

Cathy Williams was born in the island of Trinidad, the West Indies. She is a great believer in the power of perseverance as she had never written anything before (apart from school essays a lifetime ago!) and from the starting point of zero has now fulfilled her ambition to pursue this most enjoyable of careers. She would encourage any would-be writer to have faith and go for it! She has been writing Mills & Boon romances since 1990. Her hopes are to continue writing romantic fiction and providing those eternal tales of love and romance for which, she feels, we all strive. She derives inspiration from the hot, lazy tropical island of Trinidad, from the peaceful countryside of middle England and of course from her many friends who are a rich source of plots and are particularly garrulous when it comes to describing Mills & Boon heroes. It would seem, from their complaints that tall, dark and charismatic men are way too few and far between! She loves the beautiful Warwickshire countryside, where she lives with her husband and three children, Charlotte, Olivia and Emma and when not writing is hard pressed to find a moment's free time in between the millions of household chores, not to mention being a one woman taxi service for her daughters never-ending social lives.

104 books

Christine Feehan

Christine King was born in California, USA. She grew up with 10 sisters and 3 brothers. She spent a lot of time getting in trouble at school for writing instead of doing the things she was supposed to do. Later she forced her ten sisters to read every word. She said: "I've been a writer all of my life -- it is who I am. I write for myself and always have. The ability to create pictures and emotions with words is such a miracle to me. I read everything. I mean everything. All kinds of books, even encyclopedias. I am fascinated by the written word and I love storytellers. It is a great privilege to be counted one myself." Living in the beautiful mountains of Lake County, she always loved hiking, camping, rafting and being outdoors. She has also been involved in the martial arts for years - she hold a third-degree black belt, instructs in a Korean karate system and has taught self defense. She published her first novel Dark Prince in 1999, starting a paranormal saga. Her debut novel won 3 of the 9 Paranormal Excellence Awards in Romantic Literature for 1999. She also has earned 7 more PEARL awards. She has received numerous honors throughout her career including being a nominee for the RWA's RITA and receiving a Career Achievement Award from the Romantic Times. Christine is married to Richard Feehan, together they have 11 children (each had children from previous marriages), and now also numerous grandchildren. They all keep her very busy. Today, her lovely daughters read and help her edit her manuscripts.

104 books

Dean Koontz

Dean Ray Koontz is an American author best known for his novels which could be described broadly as suspense thrillers. He also frequently incorporates elements of horror, science fiction, mystery, and satire. A number of his books have appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List, with ten hardcovers and fourteen paperbacks reaching the number one slot. Early in his career, Koontz wrote under an array of pen names.¹

104 books

Dr. Seuss

Theodor Seuss Geisel was born on in Springfield, Massachusetts to German-American parents. He attended public schools and then went to Dartmouth College, where he became editor of the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern. When he was barred from all extracurricular activities, he continued to write for the paper using the pseudonym "Seuss." After he graduated he became a contributor to the magazine The Judge, and began to sign his work as "Dr. Seuss." He attended Lincoln College, Oxford to earn a D.Phil in literature, but married Helen Palmer in 1927 and returned to the United States without earning the degree. He published humorous articles and illustrations in The Judge, The Saturday Evening Post, Life, Vanity Fair, and Liberty and supported himself and his wife through the Great Depression with commercial illustrations for General Electric, NBC, Standard Oil, and many other companies. He also wrote and drew a short-lived comic strip called Hejji in 1935. In 1937, returning from an ocean voyage to Europe, he wrote his first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. When World War II began, he began to create political cartoons and became an editorial cartoonist for the left-wing New York City newspaper, PM. His political cartoons were later published in Dr. Seuss Goes to War. In 1942, he began producing propaganda posters for the Treasury Department and the War Production Board. In 1943, he joined the Animation Department of the First Motion Picture Unit of the U.S. Army Air Forces, where he wrote propaganda and training films. After the war, he and his wife moved to La Jolla, California. He returning to writing and illustrating children's books. In 1954, Life magazine published an article on the dullness of children's books, and Geisel was inspired to write The Cat in the Hat. In 1967, his wife Helen committed suicide. He married Audrey Stone Dimond in 1968. Geisel died in La Jolla, California in 1991. Over the course of his career, Geisel wrote over 60 children's books, either under the pseudonym "Dr. Seuss" for the ones he wrote and illustrated himself, "Theo. LeSieg" for books he wrote but others illustrated, or "Rosetta Stone" for Because a Little Bug Went Ka-choo (1975). He also wrote two books for adults: The Seven Lady Godivas; Oh, The Places You'll Go!; and You're Only Old Once.

102 books

Mary Balogh

Mary Jenkins was born on 1944 in Swansea, Wales, UK. After graduating from university, moved to Saskatchewan, Canada, to teach high-school English, on a two-year teaching contract in 1967. She married her Canadian husband, Robert Balogh, and had three children, Jacqueline, Christopher and Sian. When she's not writing, she enjoys reading, music and knitting. She also enjoys watching tennis and curling. Mary Balogh started writing in the evenings as a hobby. Her first book, a Regency love story, was published in 1985 as A Masked Deception under her married name. In 1988, she retired from teaching after 20 years to pursue her dream to write full-time. She has written more than seventy novels and almost thirty novellas since then, including the New York Times bestselling Slightly sextet and Simply quartet. She has won numerous awards, including Bestselling Historical of the Year from the Borders Group, and her novel Simply Magic was a finalist in the Quill Awards.

102 books

Christine Sparks

Christine Sparks was born in England. She wanted to be a writer all her life, and began by working on a British women's magazine. As a features writer, she gained a wide variety of experience. She interviewed some of the world's most attractive and interesting men, including Warren Beatty, Richard Chamberlain, Charlton Heston, Sir Roger Moore, Sir Alec Guiness. Single life was so enjoyable that Christine put marriage, and even romance, on the back burner, while she went about the world having a great time. Then, while on vacation in Venice, she met Mr. Fiorotto, a tall, dark handsome Venetian artist, who changed all her ideas in a moment, and proposed on the second day. Three months later they were married. Her friends said a whirlwind romance would never last, but they celebrated their 25 anniversary, they are still married, still happy and in love. After 13 years on the magazine Christine decided that it was now or never if she was ever going to write that novel. So she wrote "Legacy of Fire" which became a Silhouette Special Edition, followed by another, "Enchantment in Venice", published in 1984 as Lucy Gordon. Then she did something crazy gave up her job. Since then she has concentrated entirely on writing romances for Mills & Boon, Harlequin and Silhouette and has written over 75 books. Her settings have been European and her heroes mainly English or Italian. Christine now claims to be an expert on one particular subject. Italian men are the most romantic in the world. They are also the best cooks. A few years ago Christine and her husband returned to Venice and lived there for a couple of years. This proved the perfect base for exploring the rest of Italy, and she has given many of her books Italian settings: Venice (of course), Rome, Florence, Milan, Sicily, Tuscany. She has also used the Rhine in Germany for "Song of the Lorelei", for which she won her first RITA Award, in 1991. Her second RITA came in 1998, with "His Brother's Child", set in Rome. Eventually Christine and her husband returned to England, where they now live. She write and he paints, they have no children, but have a cat and a dog.

101 books

Cynthia Rylant

Cynthia Rylant is an American author and librarian. She has written more than 100 children's books, including works of fiction (picture books, short stories and novels), nonfiction, and poetry. Several of her books have won awards, including her novel Missing May, which won the 1993 Newbery Medal, and A Fine White Dust which was a 1987 Newbery Honor book. Two of her books are Caldecott Honor Books. Many of Rylant's books are about her childhood in Appalachia, her pets, the joys and hardships of family life, and the feelings of loners. Many of her books are written in series. - wikipedia

101 books

Grace Livingston Hill

Grace Livingston Hill was born to a Presbyterian minister, Charles Montgomery Livingston, and his wife Marcia Macdonald Livingston, both of whom were writers as was Hill's aunt Isabella Macdonald Alden. Hill was an early 20th century novelist and wrote both under her own name and the pseudonym 'Marcia Macdonald'. She was immensely popular during her lifetime and wrote over 100 novels and numerous short stories. Her characters were most often young female ingénues, frequently strong Christian women or those who become so within the confines of the story. (Wikipedia)

101 books

Mary Pope Osborne

Mary Pope Osborne was born into adventure. Her dad was in the army, so every year or two her family would move to a different state, or even a different country! By the time she was fifteen, Mary had lived in thirteen different houses and gone to eight different schools! Writing children's books was a perfect career for Mary because she could still travel all over the world — but be back home in time for dinner. She has written almost a hundred books, including biographies, mysteries, picture books, novels and retellings of fairy tales and world mythology. The books that have taken Mary to the most places are the Magic Tree House series. With Jack and Annie, she has traveled through time, from the prehistoric land of dinosaurs to the imaginary world of Camelot. But one of the greatest adventures of Mary's writing life is the creative journey she takes with her readers, meeting them in person in schools and bookstores and reading the wonderful stories and letters they send. This, Mary says, is true magic." Source

101 books

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of 38 plays,[c] 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He has invented over 1700 words some of which are common. (Source.) Looking for the 'First Folio'?

100 books

Kate William

98 books

Erle Stanley Gardner

Erle Stanley Gardner (July 17, 1889 – March 11, 1970) was a prolific American author. A former lawyer, he is best known for the Perry Mason series of legal detective stories, but he wrote numerous other novels and shorter pieces and also a series of nonfiction books, mostly narrations of his travels through Baja California and other regions in Mexico. The best-selling American author of the 20th century at the time of his death, Gardner also published under numerous pseudonyms, including A. A. Fair, Carl Franklin Ruth, Carleton Kendrake, Charles M. Green, Charles J. Kenny, Edward Leaming, Grant Holiday, Kyle Corning, Les Tillray, Robert Parr, Stephen Caldwell, and once as the Perry Mason character Della Street ("The Case of the Suspect Sweethearts"). Three stories were published as Anonymous ("A Fair Trial", "Part Music and Part Tears", and "You Can't Run Away from Yourself" aka "The Jazz Baby")

97 books

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published more than 50 books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays, including 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight children's books, two graphic novels, and a number of small press editions of both poetry and fiction. Her work has been published in over 40 countries, and a number of her works have been adapted for film and television. Her best-known work is the 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale, and her novels also include Cat's Eye, shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, shortlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize; The Penelopiad; The Heart Goes Last; Hag-seed; and The Testaments, a sequel to The Handmaid's Tale.

97 books

Piers Anthony

Piers Anthony was born in Oxford, England. When he was four years old, his family immigrated to the United States. He graduated from Goddard College in Vermont in 1956, the year he met and married his wife, Carol Marble. After working at odd jobs, he joined the U.S. Army in 1957 for steady income and medical insurance. In 1958, he became a U.S. citizen. He became an editor and cartoonist for the Battalion newspaper. He left the army in 1959 and briefly taught public school before becoming a full-time writer. Anthony currently lives with his wife on a tree farm which he owns in Florida.

97 books

Catherine Coulter

Jean Catherine Coulter was born on 26 December 1942 in Cameron County, Texas, USA, where she grew up in a horse ranch. She graduated from the University of Texas and earned a degree at Boston College in early 19th-century European History. Catherine married Anton Pogany, a medical student, and she took a job as a speech writer for a Wall Street company president. She spent many of her evenings alone, reading romance novels. One night when they were home together, she found herself in the middle of a particularly bad book and threw it across room, asserting that even she could do better. Her husband challenged her to prove herself, and the two spent the weekend plotting out a storyline for a gothic romance. Coulter wrote the novel in the evenings, and when she finish it, she sent it to an editor at Signet. Her novel "The Autumn Countess" was published in 1978. She says that chose a Regency romance for her debut because: "as any published author will tell you, it's best to limit the unknowns in a first book, and not only had I grown up reading Georgette Heyer, but I earned my M.A. degree in 19th century European History.". She became a bestseller novelist, and she earned her reputation writing historical romances, but now also writes contemporary romances. Catherine lives in Marin County, California with her husband, Anton Pogany, now a physician.

95 books

Christopher Pike

Christopher Pike pseudonym of American author Kevin Christopher McFadden. McFadden began writing mystery and science fiction novels after leaving college, but he was unable to publish them. When an editor at Avon Books suggested that he write a teen thriller, he wrote Slumber Party, which was published in 1985 and went on to a bestseller. In addition to dozens of teen thrillers, he has written books for children and for adult audiences.

95 books

Sandra Brown

Sandra Lynn Cox was born on March 12, 1948 in Waco, Texas and raised in Ft. Worth. She is nothing if not serious when it comes to her work. As the oldest of five daughters, she was a responsible and mature girl, and always chose to read a book rather than play with dolls. Her responsible nature stayed with Sandra as she graduated from Texas Christian University with a degree in English, and in her job as a contributing feature reporter at the nationally syndicated PM Magazine in Dallas. When the show experienced mass layoffs, however, Sandra found herself out of work. Sandra married Michael Brown, former television anchorman and award-winning documentarian of Dust to Dust, and returned to Ft. Worth. They had two children, Rachel and Ryan. Though she continued in her occasional position as a showroom model in Dallas, her husband encouraged her to try fiction writing while their children were at school. He had just left a career as a news anchor and talk-show host to form his own production company, so why shouldn't she take a creative risk, too? Within a year Sandra sold her first novel, Love's Encore, under the name Rachel Ryan (taken from the first names of her two children). Soon thereafter, she was producing a succession of books for six different publishers, culling ideas from briefs in USA Today, television shows, and her own active imagination. She wrote two boosk as Laura Jordan and several books for Harlequin under the name Erin St. Claire. Since the publication of her first novel in 1981, she has penned well over sixty books. Sandra has over fifty million copies of her books in print, and has achieved some major feats on what is perhaps the most highly regarded bestseller list of all--that of the New York Times. Since 1990, every one of Sandra's novels has appeared on the list. In total, her books have appeared on the prestigious list over thirty times. In 1992 her novel "French Silk" was made into an ABC-TV movie.

95 books

Susan Mallery

New York Times bestselling author Susan Mallery has entertained millions of readers with her witty and emotional stories about women and the relationships that move them. Publisher’s Weekly calls Susan’s prose “luscious and provocative,” and Booklist says, “Novels don’t get much better than Mallery’s expert blend of emotional nuance, humor and superb storytelling.” While Susan appreciates the critical praise, she is most honored by the enthusiastic readers who write to tell her that her books made them laugh, made them cry, and made the world a happier place to live. Susan lives in Seattle with her husband and her tiny but intrepid toy poodle. She’s there for the coffee, not the weather.

94 books

Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist.

93 books

Lucy Monroe

Lucy Monroe has sold more than 40 books and has hit national bestsellers lists in the UK and the US. Her sexy category romances for Harlequin Presents include her ongoing mini-series, The Royal Brides. Lucy is a passionate lover of romance and writes in several subcategories of the genre. She hopes to transport her readers to an extraordinary place where the heart rules and love wins out. Lucy is an avid people-watcher and reader. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, children and pets. She loves romantic movies, action adventure, theater and dabbling in hobbies.

93 books

Eleanor Burford

Eleanor Alice Burford was born on September 01, 1906 in Kensington, London. Her father, Joseph Burford, was something of an odd-job man, with no steady profession, but he quickly passed on his great love of books to his young daughter. She was an avid reader from the age of four onwards. In her early twenties, she married a leather merchant, George Percival Hibbert, who shared her love of books and reading. Eleanor Burford was one of the preeminent English authors of historical fiction for most of the twentieth century. She used eight pennames during her career and many of her readers under one penname never suspected her other identities. In 1941, she began signing her novels with her maiden name: Eleanor Burford, later she created her first and most prolific pseudonym: Jean Plaidy. In the 1950's she used the pseudonyms: Elbur Ford, Kathleen Kellow and Ellalice Tate. In 1960, she created the pseudonyms: Anna Percival and the popular Victoria Holt. In 1972, she created her last pseudonym Philippa Carr. (Some of her novels were reedited as different pseudonyms) She died on January 18, 1993 at sea, somewhere between Greece and Port Said, Egypt. By the time of her death, the novels of Jean Plaidy had sold more than 14 million copies worldwide. Her last novel The Black Opal as Victoria Holt was published posthumously, under this pseudonym, she sold 56 millon copies and as Phillipa Carr, 3 million.

92 books

Mark Twain

Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, was a prolific American author and humorist. Twain is best known for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), which has been called "the Great American Novel", and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). He is extensively quoted. Twain was a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty. (Source.)

92 books

Alan Dean Foster

Alan Dean Foster is an American author of fantasy and science fiction. He currently resides in Prescott, Arizona, with his wife, and is also known for his novelizations of film scripts. He holds a bachelor's degree in political science and a MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. (Source)

91 books

Jacqueline Wilson

Dame Jacqueline Wilson DBE FRSL (born 17 December 1945) is an English novelist known for her popular children's literature. Her novels have been notable for featuring realistic topics such as adoption and divorce without alienating her large readership. Since her debut novel in 1969, Wilson has written over 100 books. When Wilson began to focus on writing, she completed several crime fiction novels before dedicating herself to children's books. At the age of 40, she took A-level English and earned a grade A. She had mixed success with about 40 books before the breakthrough to fame in 1991 with The Story of Tracy Beaker, published by Doubleday. As her children's novels frequently feature themes of adoption, divorce and mental illness, they tend to attract controversy, yet are well loved by children and adults alike.

90 books

Sherrilyn Kenyon

Sherrilyn Kenyon, known as Sherri, was born on 11 December 1965 in Columbus, Georgia, USA. She grew up in the middle of a very big family, she had eight brothers and one sister. Her father left the family when she was only eight, and her mother was forced to send her sons to live with family in Atlanta, Georgia, while she took care of her daughters, because Sherri's older sister, Trish, has severe cerebral palsy. After 18 months, the girls could moved to Atlanta with the rest of the family. At 20, Sherri was devastated when her brother Buddy died. Sherri is is severely dyslexic, but even as a child Kenyon knew that she wanted to be a writer. In kindergarten, she wrote in her Brownie manual that she wanted to be a writer and a mother when she grew up. Her first recognition for her writing came when she won a contest in third grade by writing an essay about her mother for Mother's Day. At 7, she wrote and illustrated her first novel, a horror story about a girl who kills her brothers. At 14, she made her first professional sale, and continued to write for school newspapers, yearbooks, local papers and magazines throughout high school. Sherri gained her "love of all things that go bump in the night" from her mother, who loved paranormal storylines and never censored what movies the young girl was allowed to watch with her. When, she was in high school, she started to writing fantasy stories for herself. When in the mid-1980s, she for a small science fiction magazine called Cutting Edge, her boss asked her to write a long-running serial for the magazine. She brought many of her favorite characters from her previous fantasies into one larger series. This was the start of the Hunter-Leyends world, which later became the Dark-Hunters, Were-Hunters and Dream-Hunters stories. Many of the first Dark-Hunter heroes first appeared in her teenager stories. In this series, she has created an entire universe, the rules of which are maintained solely in her head. The books focus on an ancient "Pyramid of Protection that the ancient Greek gods formed to protect the human race from supernatural predators and to protect the order of the universe." Sherri graduated with an interdisciplinary major that combined Medieval History and language with Classical Studies, after dabbling in a total of twelve majors, she had enough credits to also earn minors in Philosophy, Psychology, and French, and to earn a certificate of Medieval Studies. Sherri married very young, and the couple moved to Richmond, Virginia, where her husband continued to study. Meanwhile, she was unable to find a job of any kind before a childhood friend mentioned that the magazine she was editing needed several articles written. Only two years later she sold her first book, with five more sales coming quickly, and she won several awards and had high sell-throughs. Then everything collapsed. After the publication of her sixth novel she found herself unable to get a writing contract. Her father died in February 1995, and she was unable to work for a very difficult pregnancy and her baby spend six weeks in the neo-natal intensive care unit. Later the same year, her mother was diagnosed with cancer, and Sherri became pregnant again, having to be hospitalized for the majority of the time. Once her second baby was born and she was able to work again, she took a minimum wage job working as a web designer to help pay the bills, still writing at every spare moment, and she finished, Fantasy Lover, the manuscript that she had begun in the hospital. In 1997, she began dreaming up the details of a pirate novel. This book was very different from her previous works, so she chose to use a pseudonym, Kinley MacGregor, which is the maiden name of her great-grandmother. Finally she found a publisher interested in vampire romances and managed to sell their Hunters. Sherrie loves the music an in her spare time, she plays the guitar, flute, piano, and the drums. She also is very interested in martial arts and sword-fighting. She even spent time as a sparring partner for a Golden Glove boxer and has a collection of swords, that everyone has a major fixation with. Her website is one of the most completes and interactives. Married with three sons, Sherrie lives outside of Nashville, Tennessee, with her family and an assorted menagerie of pets.

89 books

Georges Simenon

Georges Joseph Christian Simenon était un écrivain belge. Auteur prolifique, il a publié près de 200 romans et de nombreuses nouvelles. Il est surtout connu pour avoir créé le roman policier Maigret. Georges Joseph Christian Simenon was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 200 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known for the creation of the fictional detective Maigret.¹

87 books

Jessica Steele

Jessica Steele was born on May 9, 1933 in the elegant Warwickshire town of Royal Leamington Spa. She has two super brothers, Colin and George, and a lovely sister, Elizabeth. She was a delicate child and missed a lot of school. In fact, she left school at aged 14, when she was diagnosed as having tuberculosis. At 16, she started work as a junior clerk. In 1967, Jessica married with her husband, Peter and within a very short space of time they had moved from her hometown to the lovely area where they now live. Their house is built into the side of a hill, and has beautiful views over more hills and valleys. Her brothers and her sister are very close and she has plenty of nephews and nieces to make up for the fact that she and her husband have no children of their own. Both she and her husband are more than a little dog-oriented, and their current dog is a Staffordshire bull terrier named Florence. Florence is gorgeous. She loves everybody but, since she is 40 pounds of dynamite and would hurl her boisterous self at everyone she meets - given half a chance - she has to be restrained (as much as possible). She is fun. Her husband spurred Jessica on to her writing career, giving her every support while she did what she considers her five-year apprenticeship (the rejection years) while learning how to write. She published her first books in 1979. Jessica has tried using a typewriter, but it just doesn't work for her. She is much happier writing in longhand, and in actual fact has a dozen or so fountain pens filled and ready to go at the start of any one session. A friend has a secretarial agency and, after deciphering Jessica's writing, returns an immaculately typed manuscript. To gain authentic background for her books, she has travelled and researched in Greece, Russia, Egypt, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Hong Kong, China and Japan.

87 books

Larry Niven

Laurence van Cott Niven — known as Larry Niven — is an American science fiction writer. His best-known work is Ringworld (1970), which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. The Science Fiction Writers of America named him the 2015 recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics. It also often includes elements of detective fiction and adventure stories. His fantasy includes the series The Magic Goes Away, rational fantasy dealing with magic as a non-renewable resource. Niven was born in Los Angeles. He briefly attended the California Institute of Technology and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics (with a minor in psychology) from Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, in 1962. He did a year of graduate work in mathematics at the University of California at Los Angeles. On September 6, 1969, he married Marilyn Joyce "Fuzzy Pink" Wisowaty, a science fiction and Regency literature fan. He is an agnostic. Source: Wikipedia

87 books

Lindsay Armstrong

Lindsay Armstrong was born in South Africa. She grew up with three ambitions: to become a writer, to travel the world, and to be a game ranger. She didn't achieve the last one, but her fascination for wildlife and that special something about Africa and its big game still remains with her. When she went to work it was in travel, at an agency and an airline, and this started her on the road to seeing the world. Lindsey met her New Zealand-born husband, who had been working in West Africa, when he was on his way home through Johannesburg. He did go home but in a matter of weeks he was back in South Africa, and six months later they were married. Three of their five children were born in South Africa. Then one in London and one in Australia, after they made the decision to emigrate from South Africa. It wasn't until her youngest child started school that Lindsay sat down at the kitchen table determined to tackle her other ambition to stop dreaming about writing and do it! She hasn't stopped since. She's not happy unless she has a book under way, and she's discovered she can write through just about anything. She was published since 1981. Lindsay and her husband have moved around a lot. They've trained racehorses, farmed, and lived on their boat for six months while they sailed it from the Gold Coast to the Torres Strait and back, an epic voyage! They currently live in Queensland, overlooking the water; they sold their farm, and they're looking around for another boat. She and her husband love to travel and have been back to Africa twice in the past few years. The highlight of one of their trips was a visit to the Serengeti, in Tanzania, where Lindsay did the one thing she swore she would never do: take a ride in a hot-air balloon. She was a nervous wreck as the balloon tottered upright, but will remember it as a unique experience to see the game spreading out on the Serengeti plain beneath her as the sun rose. "They say you can take someone who was born in Africa out of the bush but you can't take the bush out of someone born there..." Despite this passion for wildlife and Africa, Lindsay considers Australia her home now and loves the country. She travelled to Sydney to witness the closing weekend of the Olympic Games in September 2000; it made her proud to be an adopted Aussie!

87 books

DK Publishing

DK, formerly known as Dorling Kindersley, is a British multinational publishing company specialising in illustrated reference books for adults and children in 63 languages. It is part of Penguin Random House, a subsidiary of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. Established in 1974, DK publishes a range of titles in genres including travel (including DK Eyewitness travel), history, science, nature, sport, gardening, cookery and parenting. The worldwide CEO of DK is Carsten Coesfeld. DK has offices in New York, Melbourne, London, Munich, New Delhi, Toronto, Madrid, Beijing and Jiangmen. DK works with licensing partners to publish books such as Disney, LEGO, Star Wars, DC Comics, Royal Horticultural Society, MasterChef and the Smithsonian Institution. DK has commissioned Mary Berry, Monty Don, Robert Winston, Huw Richards and Steve Mould for a range of books. Source: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DK_(publisher)" target="blanck">DK (publisher)</a> on Wikipedia.

86 books

Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card is an American novelist, critic, public speaker, essayist and columnist. He writes in several genres but is known best for science fiction. His novel Ender's Game (1985) and its sequel Speaker for the Dead (1986) both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the only author to win both science fiction's top U.S. prizes in consecutive years.

85 books

Terry Pratchett

Sir Terence David John Pratchett, OBE more commonly known as Terry Pratchett, was an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best-known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels. Pratchett's first novel, The Carpet People, was published in 1971, and since his first Discworld novel (The Colour of Magic) was published in 1983, he has written two books a year on average. Pratchett was the UK's best-selling author of the 1990s, and as of December 2007 had sold more than 55 million books worldwide, with translations made into 36 languages. He is currently the second most-read writer in the UK, and seventh most-read non-US author in the US. In 2001 he won the Carnegie Medal for his young adult novel The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents.

85 books

Anne Hampson

Anne Hampson was born on November 28 in England. At age six she had two ambitions: to teach and to write. Poverty after WWI deprived her of an education and at 14 she was making Marks & Spencer's blouses at one shilling (5p) each. She retired when she married. Later, when her marriage broke up, she was homeless with £40 in her purse. She went back to the rag trade and lived in a tiny caravan. But she never forgot her two ambitions, and when Manchester University decided to trial older women she applied, and three years later had achieved one ambition, so set her thoughts on number two. In 1969, her first novel, Eternal Summer, was accepted five days from posting and she soon had a contract for 12 more. From the caravan she went to a small stately home, drove a Mercedes and sailed on the QE2. From the first book, came over 125 more written for Mills & Boon, Harlequin and Silhouette. Alan Boon (the Boon of Mills & Boon) and she came up with the title for 'Harlequin Presents' over lunch at the Ritz. She suggested to Alan that they have a historical series. He told her to write one - it was done in a month, entitled Eleanor and the Marquis under the pseudonym Jane Wilby. She has the distinction of being number one in Harlequin Presents, Masquerade and Silhouette. Many of "Presents" have been reprinted many times (some as many as 16) and are now fetching up to $55, being classed as "rare" books. She has had 3 awards, one at the World Trade Centre where she received a standing ovation from her American fans, who had come from many states just to meet her. She has written her autobiography, entitled Fate Was My Friend. She is retired, but in 2005 she wrote two romance and crime novels, both of which were published by Severn House.

83 books

Jude Deveraux

Jude Gilliam was born September 20, 1947 in Fairdale, Kentucky. She has a large extended family, and is the elder sister of four brothers. She attended Murray State University and received a degree in Art. In 1967, Jude married and took her husband's surname of White, but four years later they divorced. For years, she worked as 5th-grade teacher. She began writing in 1976 and her first book, The Enchanted land was published in 1977 as Jude Deveraux. Following the publication of her first novel, she resigned her teaching position. Now, she is the author of thirty-one New York Times bestsellers. Jude won readers' hearts with the epic Velvet series, which revolves around the lives of the Montgomery family's irresistible men. Jude's early books are set largely in 15th- and 16th-century England, in which her fierce, impassioned protagonists find themselves in the midst of blood feuds and wars. Her heroines are equally scrappy -- medieval Scarlett O'Haras who often have a low regard for the men who eventually win them over. They're fighters, certainly, but they're also beauties who are preoccupied with survival and family preservation. Jude has also stepped outside her milieu, with mixed results. Her James River trilogy (River Lady, Lost Lady, and Counterfeit Lady) is set mostly in post-Revolution America; the popular, softer-edged Twin of Fire/Twin of Ice moves to 19th-century Colorado and introduces another hunky-man clan, the Taggerts. Deveraux manages to evoke a strong and convincing atmosphere for each of her books, but her dialogue and characters are as familiar as a modern-day soap opera's. "Historicals seem to be all I'm capable of," Jude once said in an interview, referring to a now out-of-print attempt at contemporary fiction, 1982's Casa Grande. "I don't want to write family sagas or occult books, and I have no intention of again trying to ruin the contemporary market." Still, Jude did later attempt modern-day romances, such as the lighthearted High Tide (her first murder caper), the contemporary female friendship story The Summerhouse, and the time-traveling Knight in Shining Armor. In fact, with 2002's The Mulberry Tree, Deveraux seems to be getting more comfortable setting stories in the present, which is a good thing, since the fans she won with her historical books are eager to follow her into the future. Jude married Claude Montassir, with whom she had a son, Sam Alexander Montassir in 1997. They were eventually divorced. On Oct. 6th, 2005, Sam died at the age of eight in a motorcycle accident. Jude has lived in several countries and all over the United States. She currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina and also has a home in the medieval city of Badolato, Italy.

83 books

Linda Howard

Linda S. was born August 3, 1950 in Gadsden, Alabama, U.S.A.. She cut her teeth on Margaret Mitchell, Robert Ruark, "and anything else that fell into my hands," she says. Whether she is reading them or writing them, books have long played a profound role in Linda's life. Linda wrote her first book when she was 10 years old. "Needless to say, it was unpublishable," she says. "It didn't even have a title. I didn't name them back then." In the ensuing 21 years of writing for her own pleasure, following junior college Linda worked in the transportation industry, where she met Gary F. Howington, her husband. "In the company I worked for, my title was secretary to the terminal manager, but I actually did very little secretarial work," she says. "I worked in every phase of the transportation business, but my main duties were payroll, insurance, and the efficiency and production reports." Writing production reports, however, soon grew tiresome for Linda. As she continued to write fiction, concentrating on romantic stories. "I get bored with politics and murder and mayhem," she says. She eventually worked up the courage to submit a manuscript for publication. "It made me sick literally, physically ill. It was like putting your naked baby into the mailbox. And I lost 20 pounds waiting to hear from them. I couldn't eat." Linda needn't have worried Silhouette Books bought her manuscript, beginning a career that has (so far) lasted over 10 years and earned her many awards and letters of praise from adoring fans. She has over 10 million books in print around the world, and has written more than 25 titles. Linda has written for Silhouette Special Edition and continues to write for Silhouette Sensation, and is a New York Times bestselling author for Pocket Books writing historicals. Linda Howard is a charter member of RWA, joining in 1981 shortly after it was formed. She is one of the original members of her local RWA chapter, has served as treasurer, vice president, and president of that chapter, and has twice been a RITA finalist. In addition to her wide public acclaim, Linda has also been honored by both the critics and her peers many times. She has won the B. Dalton Bestseller Award and the Romantic Times Magazine Reviewers' Choice Award for Series and the W.I.S.H. Award for hero Joe Mackenzie from her Silhouette Intimate Moments title, Mackenzie's Mission. A tie-in book, Mackenzie's Pleasure, reached number 61 on the USA Today bestseller list. A Romance Writers of America RITA and Golden Choice finalist, she is a frequent Waldenbooks bestselling author, often claiming the number-one position. Now, Linda has three grown step-children and three grandchildren. She lives in her native Alabama with her husband Gary and two golden retrievers, named Bit O'Honey and Sugar Baby. They live in in a big house that's very much a home and not a showplace. "It's a house where the kids romp, the dogs romp, and you can sit on any piece of furniture. Her husband fishes BassMaster tournament trail for a living, and she travels with him."

83 books

A. A. Milne

A. A. Milne was born in Kilburn, London and went to school at a small independent school run by his father, John Vine Milne. He went to Westminster School and studied mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was married in 1913, and then joined the British Army in World War I. In 1920, his son, Christopher Robin Milne, was born. In 1925, Milne moved to a country home called Cotchford Farm in Hartfield, East Sussex. Winnie-the-Pooh, Milne's most famous work, was published in 1926. Although he had his greatest success with his books for children, he stopped writing works for children by the end of the decade, saying that the source of his inspiration for children's stories, his son, had grown older. He continued to write works for adults, although he was frustrated to find that these works were not nearly as popular as his children's books. Milne retired to Cotchford Farm after a stroke and brain surgery in 1952 left him an invalid, and he died in 1956.

82 books

Kim Lawrence

82 books

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens, was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era, and one of the most popular of all time. He created some of literature's most iconic characters, with the theme of social reform running throughout his work. The continuing popularity of his novels and short stories is such that they have never gone out of print. (Source.)

81 books

Clive Cussler

Cussler began writing novels in 1965 and published his first work featuring his continuous series hero, Dirk Pitt, in 1973. His first non-fiction, The Sea Hunters, was released in 1996. The Board of Governors of the Maritime College, State University of New York, considered The Sea Hunters in lieu of a Ph.D. thesis and awarded Cussler a Doctor of Letters degree in May, 1997. It was the first time since the College was founded in 1874 that such a degree was bestowed. Cussler is an internationally recognized authority on shipwrecks and the founder of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, (NUMA) a 501C3 non-profit organization (named after the fictional Federal agency in his novels) that dedicates itself to preserving American maritime and naval history. He and his crew of marine experts and NUMA volunteers have discovered more than 60 historically significant underwater wreck sites including the first submarine to sink a ship in battle, the Confederacy's Hunley, and its victim, the Union's Housatonic; the U-20, the U-boat that sank the Lusitania; the Cumberland, which was sunk by the famous ironclad, Merrimack; the renowned Confederate raider Florida; the Navy airship, Akron, the Republic of Texas Navy warship, Zavala, found under a parking lot in Galveston, and the Carpathia, which sank almost six years to-the-day after plucking Titanic's survivors from the sea. In September, 1998, NUMA - which turns over all artifacts to state and Federal authorities, or donates them to museums and universities - launched its own web site for those wishing more information about maritime history or wishing to make donations to the organization. (www.numa.net). In addition to being the Chairman of NUMA, Cussler is also a fellow in both the Explorers Club of New York and the Royal Geographic Society in London. He has been honored with the Lowell Thomas Award for outstanding underwater exploration. Cussler's books have been published in more than 40 languages in more than 100 countries. His past international bestsellers include Pacific Vortex, Mediterranean Caper, Iceberg, Raise the Titanic, Vixen 03, Night Probe, Deep Six, Cyclops, Treasure, Dragon, Sahara, Inca Gold, Shock Wave, Flood Tide, Atlantis Found, Valhalla Rising, Trojan Odyssey and Black Wind (this last with his son, Dirk Cussler); the nonfiction books The Sea Hunters, The Sea Hunters II and Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt r Revealed; the NUMA® Files novels Serpent, Blue Gold, Fire Ice, White Death and Lost City (written with Paul Kemprecos); and the Oregon Files novels Sacred Stone and Golden Buddha (written with Craig Dirgo) and Dark Watch (written with Jack Du Brul). Taken From Good Reads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18411.Clive_Cussler

81 books

Robert Kirkman

81 books

Linda Lael Miller

TODAY bestselling author of more than 100 historical and contemporary novels, most of which reflect her love of the West. Raised in Northport, Washington, Linda pursued her wanderlust, living in London and Arizona and traveling the world before returning to the state of her birth to settle down on a spacious property outside Spokane. Linda traces the birth of her writing career to the day when a Northport teacher told her that the stories she was writing were good, that she just might have a future in writing. Later, when she decided to write novels, she endured her share of rejection before she sold Fletcher’s Woman in 1983 to Pocket Books. Since then, Linda has successfully published historicals, contemporaries, paranormals, mysteries and thrillers before coming home, in a literal sense, and concentrating on novels with a Western flavor. For her devotion to her craft, the Romance Writers of America awarded her their prestigious Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007.

80 books

Violet Winspear

Violet Winspear was born on 28 April 1928 in England. She worked in a factory since 1942, when in 1961 she sold her first romance novels to Mills & Boon. In 1963, she became a full time writer.[2] She wrote from her home in the south-east England, that she never left, but she meticulously researched her far-flung settings at the local library. She never married, and had no children. She inspired her nephew Jonathan Winspear to write. Violet said: "The real aim of romance is to provide escape and entertainment", but when in 1970 she commented: "I get my heroes so that they're lean and hard muscled and mocking and sardonic and tough and tigerish and single, of course. Oh and they've got to be rich and then I make it that they're only cynical and smooth on the surface. But underneath they're well, you know, sort of lost and lonely. In need of love but, when roused, capable of breathtaking passion and potency. Most of my heroes, well all of them really, are like that. They frighten but fascinate. They must be the sort of men who are capable of rape: men it's dangerous to be alone in the room with." The comment, that they were 'capable of rape' caused a big controversy, uproar and lead to her receiving hate mail. In 1973, she became a launch author for the new Presents line of category romance novels. Mills & Boon/Harlequin Presents books were more sensual than the previous line, Romance, under which she had been published. She was chosen to be a launch author because she, along with Anne Mather and Anne Hampson were the most popular and prolific of Mills & Boon's British authors. Considered a legend in the romance community and influenced many authors, including Muriel Jensen, Jane Porter, Trish Morey and Sandra Marton. She also inspired her nephew Jonathan to write. She pased away at the beginning of 1989 after a long battle with cancer.

80 books

Catherine George

Catherine George was born in a village on the Welsh-English border, where the public library featured largely in her life. Her mother, who looked upon literature as a basic necessity of life, fervently encouraged Catherine's passion for reading, little knowing it would one day motivate her daughter into writing her first novel. At 18, Catherine met a future Engineer, who had set in a pendant a gold sovereign, that his grandmother put in his hand when he was born, and Catherine have never taken off since. After their marriage he swept her off to Brazil, where he worked as Chief Engineer of a large gold-mining operation in the mountains of Minas Gerais, a setting which later provided a very popular background for several of Catherine's early novels. Nine happy years passed there before the question of their small son's education decided their return to Britain. Not long afterward a daughter was born, and for a time Catherine lived a fulfilled life as a wife and mother who always made time to read, especially in the bath! Her husband's job took him abroad again, to Portugal, West Africa, and various countries of the Middle East, but this time she stayed home with the family. And spent a lot of lonely evenings in between the reunions when her husband came home on leave. "Instead of reading other people's novels all the time," he suggested one day, "why not have a shot at writing one yourself?" So Catherine did. But first she took a creative writing course. Encouraged by the other students' enthusiasm for her contributions, she decided to try her hand at romance, and read countless Mills & Boon novels as research before writing one herself. Her first novel was accepted in 1982, which Romantic Times voted best of its genre for that year, along with more than sixty written since. These days son and daughter have fled the nest, but they return with loving regularity to where Catherine and her husband back for good from his travels live, with Prince, the most recent Labrador, in a house built at the end of Victoria's reign in four acres of garden on the cliffs between the beautiful Wye Valley and the River Severn.

79 books

Johanna Lindsey

Johanna Helen Howard was born on March 10, 1952 in Germany, where her father, Edwin Dennis Howard, a soldier in the U.S. Army was stationed. The family moved about a great deal when she was young. Her father always dreamed of retiring to Hawaii, and after he passed away in 1964 Johanna and her mother settled there to honor him. In 1970, when she was still in school, she married Ralph Lindsey, becoming a young housewife. The marriage had three children; Alfred, Joseph and Garret, who already have made her a grandmother. After her husband's death, Johanna moved to Maine, New England, to stay near her family. Johanna Lindsey wrote her first book, Captive Bride in 1977 "on a whim", and the book was a success. By 2006, with over 58 Million copies of her books have been sold worldwide, with translations appearing in 12 languages, Johanna Lindsey is one of the world's most popular authors of historical romance. Johanna's books span the various eras of history, including books set in the Middle Ages, the American "Old West" and the popular Regency England-Scotland. She has even written a few sci-fi romances. By far the most popular among her books are the stories about the Malory-Anderson Family, a Regency England saga.

78 books

Melanie Milburne

78 books

Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (née Kroeber; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author. She is best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the Earthsea fantasy series. Her work was first published in 1959, and her literary career spanned nearly sixty years, producing more than twenty novels and more than a hundred short stories, in addition to poetry, literary criticism, translations, and children's books. Frequently described as an author of science fiction, Le Guin has also been called a "major voice in American Letters". Le Guin said that she would prefer to be known as an "American novelist". Source: Wikipedia

78 books

Anne Weale

Jay Blakeney was born on 20 June 1929. Her great-grandfather was a well-known writer on moral theology, so perhaps she inherited her writing gene from him. She was "talking stories" to herself long before she could read. When she was still at school, she sold her first short stories to a woman's magazine and she feels she was destined to write. Decided to became a writer, she started writing for newspapers and magazines. At 21, Jay was a newspaper reporter with a career plan, but the man she was wildly in love with announced that he was off to the other side of the world. He thought they should either marry or say goodbye. She always believed that true love could last a lifetime, and she felt that wonderful men were much harder to find than good jobs, so she put her career on hold. What a wise decision it was! She felt that new young women seem less inclined to risk everything for love than her generation. Together they traveled the world. If she hadn't spent part of her bridal year living on the edge of a jungle in Malaysia, she might never have become a romance writer. That isolated house, and the perils of the state of emergency that existed in the country at that time, gave her a background and plot ideally suited to a genre she had never read until she came across some romances in the library of a country club they sometimes visited. She can write about love with the even stronger conviction that comes from experience. When they returned to Europe, Jay resumed her career as a journalist, writing her first romance in her spare time. She sold her first novel as Anne Weale to Mills and Boon in 1955 at the age of 24. At 30, with seven books published, she "retired" to have a baby and become a full-time writer. She raised a delightful son, David, who is as adventurous as his father. Her husband and son have even climbed in the Andes and the Himalayas, giving her lots of ideas for stories. When she retired from reporting, her fiction income -- a combination of amounts earned as a Mills & Boon author and writing for magazines such as Woman's Illustrated, which serialized the work of authors -- exceed 1,000 pounds a year. She was a founding member of the The Romantic Novelists' Association. In 2002 she published her last novel, in total, she wrote 88 novels. She also wrote under the pseudonym Andrea Blake. She loved setting her novels in exotic parts of the world, but specially in The Caribbean and in her beloved Spain. Since 1989, Jay spent most of the winter months in a very small "pueblo" in the backwoods of Spain. During years, she visited some villages, and from each she have borrowed some feature - a fountain, a street, a plaza, a picturesque old house - to create some places like Valdecarrasca, that is wholly imaginary and yet typical of the part of rural Spain she knew best. She loved walking, reading, sketching, sewing (curtains and slipcovers) and doing needlepoint, gardening, entertaining friends, visiting art galleries and museums, writing letters, surfing the Net, traveling in search of exciting locations for future books, eating delicious food and drinking good wine, cataloguing her books. She wrote a regular website review column for The Bookseller from 1998 to 2004, before starting her own blog Bookworm on the Net. At the time of her death, on 24 October 2007, she was working on her autobiography "88 Heroes... 1 Mr. Right".

77 books