Authors

Fern Michaels

Fern Michaels is the pen name of Mary Ruth Kuczkir, who was born in Hastings, Pennsylvania on April 9, 1933, weighing only four and one-half pounds. Because of her small birth weight, Michaels' father nicknamed her "Dink," for "dinky little thing. Her family and friends still use the nickname. As a child, though, others referred to her as Ruth. Once she entered the business world, she became "Mary." Michaels married, moved to New Jersey, and had five children. When the youngest entered school in 1973, her husband told her to get a job. Because she had no idea how to get a job, Michaels decided to try to write a book. Her husband was not very supportive of her efforts, and consequently they separated. Although her first manuscript did not sell, the second did. Since then, Michaels has sold over sixty books, many of them New York Times bestsellers. She has been quoted as saying that she loves breathing life into her characters. She also loves writing books about women who prevail under difficult circumstances, which she feels reflect her struggle for success early in her career. For her efforts, she has been inducted into the New Jersey Literary Hall of Fame. When she was a girl, Michaels' grandmother told her "when God is good to you, you have to give back". With this in mind, she founded the Fern Michaels Foundation, which grants four year scholarships for deserving students. In addition to that, she has also helped establish pre-school and day care programs with affordable rates for single mothers. Michaels currently lives in Summerville, South Carolina, in a 300-year-old plantation house listed in the Historic Registry. She claims to share the house with a ghost named Mary Margaret (which had also been documented by the previous owners). Mary Margaret is said to leave messages on her computer. *wikipedia

77 books

Francine Pascal

Francine Pascal, a native New Yorker, is an author best known for creating the Sweet Valley series of young adult novels. Sweet Valley High was the backbone of the collection, and was made into a popular television series. There were also several spin-offs, including The Unicorn Club, Sweet Valley University, and Sweet Valley Sorority.<p></p> Francine Rubin graduated from New York University in 1958. It was there that she first met author and journalist John Pascal and, in 1965, they were married (the second marriage for each). Francine often credited John as her writing mentor, and they collaborated on several projects, including writing scripts for the ABC soap opera The Young Marrieds, which aired from 1964 - 1966. John died of cancer in 1981, at 49 years old.<p></p> Francine's brother was the prolific Broadway playwright and librettist Michael Stewart, who wrote the books to such Broadway musical hits as Bye Bye Birdie, Hello, Dolly!, and 42nd Street. Francine, her husband John, and her brother Michael worked together writing the book to the Broadway musical George M!, which ran at the Palace Theatre from 1968 - 1970. A television version of George M! was aired on NBC in 1970.<p></p> Michael Stewart died in 1987. Since then, Francine has revised his musical Mack & Mabel. She has also worked on the revision of another of his musicals, Carnival!, for the Kennedy Center in Washington.<p></p> Francine's first young adult novel, published in 1977, was called Hangin' Out with Cici, in which her heroine, Victoria Martin, went back in time and met her mother as a teenager. It was televised as an ABC After-School Special entitled My Mother Was Never a Kid. She has written two other Victoria Martin books: My First Love and Other Disasters, and Love and Betrayal & Hold the Mayo. Another of her early novels, The Hand-Me-Down Kid, was also made into an ABC After-School Special.<p></p> More recent works include the Caitlin series, a set of three trilogies which follows a teenage girl into adulthood, as well as a second mass-market project, the young adult fantasy spy series Fearless and its spin-off, Fearless: FBI. A TV series was also planned for Fearless, but for several reasons it never aired.<p></p> The Ruling Class, a teen novel about a clique of spectacularly cruel girls who essentially run a high school in a wealthy Dallas suburb, was described in a Fantastic Fiction review as "a magnetic tour de force created by a master storyteller at the top of her form."<p></p> In addition to her work for mostly female teens, Francine has written some adult fiction books, including La Villa (originally published as If Wishes Were Horses) and Save Johanna!, as well as a non-fiction book, The Strange Case of Patty Hearst, which she wrote with her husband John. (Although La Villa was billed as fiction, it has been suggested that it may have been based in part upon true experiences of the author and her late husband. Without further corroboration, however, this can be considered no more than conjecture.)<p></p> John and Francine Pascal lived in Manhattan with Francine's three daughters from her first marriage: Jamie, Laurie, and Susan. (John had a son from his first marriage, Matthew, who lived with his mother.) After John died, Francine and her daughters remained in Manhattan, and Francine has been quoted as saying that much of the inspiration for her young adult novels came from watching her own three daughters grow up.<p></p> Sadly, in 2008, Francine's oldest daughter Jamie died after a two-year battle with liver disease.<p></p> Francine Pascal now divides her time between homes in New York and the south of France. Since John died, she has never remarried.

77 books

Kay Thorpe

Kay Thorpe was born on 1935 in England. An avid reader from the time when words on paper began to make sense, she developed a lively imagination of her own, making up stories for the entertainment of her young friends. After leaving school, she tried a variety of jobs, including dental nursing, and a spell in the Women's Royal Airforce from which she emerged knowing a whole lot more about life - if only as an observer. In 1960, she married with Tony, but didn't begin thinking about trying her hand at writing for a living until she gave up work some four years later to have a baby, John. Having read Mills & Boon novels herself, and done some market research in the local library asking readers what it was they particularly liked about the books, she decided to aim for a particular market, and was fortunate to have her very first, completed manuscript accepted - The Last of the Mallorys, published in 1968. Since then she has written over seventy five books, which doesn't begin to compare with the output of some Mills & Boon authors, but still leaves her wondering where all those words came from. Sometimes, she finds she has become two different people: the writer at her happiest when involved in the world of books and authors; and the housewife, turning her hands to the everyday needs of husband and son. Once in a while, she finds it difficult to step from one role to the other. She likes cooking, for instance, but she finds that it can be an irritating interruption when she's preoccupied with work on a novel, so the quality of her efforts in the kitchen tend to be a little erratic. She says, "As my husband once remarked, my writing gives life a fascinating element of uncertainly: one day a perfect coq au vin, the next day a couple of burned chops!" Luckily Kay has daily professional help with her housework, and that leaves her time to indulge in her hobbies. Like many other Mills & Boon authors, she admits to being a voracious consumer of books, a quality she shares with her readers. She likes music and horseback riding, which she does in the countryside near her home. But her favorite hobby is travel - especially to places that will make good settings for her books. Kay now lives on the outskirts of Chesterfield in Derbyshire, along with husband, Tony, and a huge tabby cat called Mad Max her one son having flown the coop. Some day she'll think about retiring, but not yet awhile.

77 books

Dan Gutman

Dan Gutman (born October 19, 1955) is an American writer, primarily of children's fiction. His works include the Baseball Card Adventures children's book series and the My Weird School series. source His wife is Nina Wallace ​(m. 1983)​ and he has two children.

76 books

Robert Silverberg

Robert Silverberg is an American author, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Silverberg received a Nebula award in 1986 for his novella Sailing to Byzantium, which takes its name from Yeats' poem; a Hugo in 1990 for Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another; and in 2004 he was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America. (Source)

76 books

Lynsay Sands

Lynsay Sands is a Canadian author of over 80 books. She is noted for the humor she injects into her stories. While she writes both historical and paranormal romance novels, she is best known for her Argeneau series about a modern family of vampires.

75 books

Philip K. Dick

Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist whose published work during his lifetime was almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments, and altered states. In his later works, Dick's thematic focus strongly reflected his personal interest in metaphysics and theology. He often drew upon his own life experiences and addressed the nature of drug abuse, paranoia and schizophrenia, and transcendental experiences in novels such as A Scanner Darkly and VALIS. Source and more information: Wikipedia (EN)

75 books

Sally Wentworth

Sally Wentworth was the pseudonym of Doris Hornsblow Doreen was born in Watford, Hertfordshire, England, UK. She married Donald Alfred Hornsblow, with whom she has a son Keith, in 1968, the family lived in Braughing, England. Doreen began her publishing career at a Fleet Street newspaper in London, where she thrived in the hectic atmosphere. She started writing after attending an evening class course and sold her first novel to Mills & Boon's in 1977, she published her novels under the pseudonym Sally Wentworth. Her novels were principally set in Great Britain or in exotic places like Canary Islands or Greece. Her first works are stand-alone novels, but in 1990s, she decided to create her first series. In 1991, she wrote a book in two parts about the Barclay twins and their same great love, and in 1995, she wrote the Ties of Passion Trilogy about the Brodey family, that have money, looks, style, everything... except love. Doreen was accounts clerk at Associated Newspapers Ltd. in London, England, and accounts clerk at Consumers' Association in Hertford, England. In 1985, she was the founding chair ot the Hertford Association of National Trust Members, and named its life president. She also collected knife rests and she was member of The Knife Rest Collectors Club. Doreen Hornsblow died from cancer in 2001, at 64 years.

75 books

Tomie dePaola

Thomas Anthony de Paola was born in Meriden, Connecticut. He became interested in art at an early age. After graduating from high school, he attended the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. In 1956, he graduated with his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. He taught art at Newton College of the Sacred Heart from 1962 to 1966, then moved to California where he taught at San Francisco College for Women from 1967 to 1970. His first illustrated book, Sound, was published in 1965. In 1969, he received his Master of Fine Arts degree from California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. He relocated to New England and taught art at Chamberlayne Junior College in Boston from 1972 to 1973. He then became an associate professor, designer, and technical director in the Speech and Theater department at Colby-Sawyer College from 1973 to 1976. In 1976, he received the Caldecott Honor for Strega Nona (1976). In 1978 he left teaching to become a full-time author and illustrator, while still living in New London, New Hampshire. Tomi passed away in March, 2020.

75 books

Arthur C. Clarke

Sir Arthur Charles Clarke CBE FRAS was a British science fiction writer, science writer and futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host. He is famous for being co-writer of the screenplay for the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, widely considered to be one of the most influential films of all time. Clarke was a science writer, who was both an avid populariser of space travel and a futurist of uncanny ability. On these subjects he wrote over a dozen books and many essays, which appeared in various popular magazines. In 1961 he was awarded the Kalinga Prize, an award which is given by UNESCO for popularising science. These along with his science fiction writings eventually earned him the moniker "Prophet of the Space Age". His other science fiction writings earned him a number of Hugo and Nebula awards, which along with a large readership made him one of the towering figures of science fiction. For many years Clarke, Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov were known as the "Big Three" of science fiction. Clarke was a lifelong proponent of space travel. In 1934, while still a teenager, he joined the British Interplanetary Society. In 1945, he proposed a satellite communication system using geostationary orbits. He was the chairman of the British Interplanetary Society from 1946–1947 and again in 1951–1953. Clarke emigrated from England to Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) in 1956, largely to pursue his interest in scuba diving. That year he discovered the underwater ruins of the ancient Koneswaram temple in Trincomalee. Clarke augmented his fame later on in the 1980s, from being the host of several television shows such as Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World. He lived in Sri Lanka until his death. Clarke was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1989 "for services to British cultural interests in Sri Lanka". He was knighted in 1998 and was awarded Sri Lanka's highest civil honour, Sri Lankabhimanya, in 2005. ---From Wikipedia

74 books

Cassandra Clare

Cassandra Clare was born overseas and spent her early years traveling around the world with her family and several trunks of fantasy books. Cassandra worked for several years as an entertainment journalist for the Hollywood Reporter before turning her attention to fiction. She is the author of City of Bones, the first book in the Mortal Instruments trilogy and a New York Times bestseller. Cassandra lives with her fiance and their two cats in Massachusetts.

74 books

Dav Pilkey

74 books

C. S. Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis was an Irish-born British novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist.

73 books

Helen Bianchin

Helen Shirley was born on 20 February 1939 in New Zealand, where she grew up, an only child possessed by a vivid imagination and a love for reading. She wrote stories for amusement in her early teenage years, and when she left leaving school, she took a secretarial job at a father-and-son legal firm. At age twenty-one Helen joined a girlfriend and embarked on a working holiday in Australia, travelling via cruise ship from Auckland to Melbourne. Alas, no shipboard romance, as she spent all four days in her cabin suffering from sea-sickness! After fifteen months working in Melbourne, Helen and her friend bought a vehicle and took three months to drive the length and breadth of Australia, choosing to work in Cairns in order to fund the final leg of our journey to Sydney. It was in Cairns that Helen met her future husband, Danilo Bianchin, an Italian immigrant from Treviso. He was a tobacco sharefarmer from the tobacco farming community of Mareeba. His English was pitiful, and her command of Italian was nil. Six months later they married, and Helen was flung into cooking for up to nine tobacco pickers, stringing tobacco, feeding 200 chickens, a few turkeys, ducks... plus killing, cleaning and cooking the same! Her knowledge of Italian improved, and there were hilarious moments in retrospect. Some of what she endured was cooking on a wood-burning stove, having no running hot water, a primitive shower and toilet facilities, washing uniforms for two soccer teams during the soccer season... floods, horrendous hailstone damage to tobacco crops, hardship, and the stillbirth of their first child. Then, to their joy, Helen's daughter, Lucia, was born. Three years later the couple returned to New Zealand, where they settled for sixteen years. During those early years, they added two sons, Angelo and Peter, to the family. With multiple anecdotes of farm life in an Italian community to friends, the idea of writing a book occurred. A romance, set on a tobacco farm in Australia's far north, Queensland, featuring an Italian hero. Helen says, "the background was authentic, believe me!" However the hero was rich and owned the farm artistic license! It took her a year to complete a passable manuscript, typed on a portable typewriter at the dining room table. That first effort was deemed too short with insufficient detail. Helen rewrote it. This time it was considered too long with too much extraneous detail. She revised, then sent it to London. Four months later she received a telegram from Alan Boon (Mills & Boon) to say they intended to publish and a contract would be sent in the mail. It was the most wonderful news! Helen wrote ten more books while living in New Zealand, then in 1981, her family resettled in Australia, on Queensland's Gold Coast. She has since published twenty-five more books. Today, with computer technology, the mechanics of writing are much easier. However, the writing process doesn't change. Helen says that she's having a good day if she can achieve 5 good pages, which she is likely to change, edit and rewrite the following day. She loves creating characters, giving them life and providing a situation where their emotions are tested and love wins out. For her, the greatest praise is for a reader to say they couldn't put the book down... then Helen knows that she has achieved what she set out to do -- "create a moving enjoyable story which holds the reader entertained from beginning to end." Helen's hobbies are tennis, table-tennis, judo, reading. She loves movies, and leads an active social life.

73 books

Janet Evanovich

Janet Evanovich (born Janet Schneider; April 22, 1943) is an American writer. She began her career writing short contemporary romance novels under the pen name Steffie Hall, but gained fame authoring a series of contemporary mysteries featuring Stephanie Plum, a former lingerie buyer from Trenton, New Jersey, who becomes a bounty hunter to make ends meet after losing her job. The novels in this series have been on The New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Amazon bestseller lists. Evanovich has had her last seventeen Plums debut at #1 on the NY Times Best Sellers list and eleven of them have hit #1 on USA Today Best-Selling Books list. She has over two hundred million books in print worldwide and is translated into over 40 languages. (taken from Wikipedia)

73 books

Laurell K. Hamilton

Laurell Kaye Hamilton (born February 19, 1963) is an American fantasy and romance writer. She is best known as the author of two series of stories. Her New York Times-bestselling Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series centers on Anita Blake, a professional zombie raiser, vampire executioner and supernatural consultant for the police, which includes novels, short story collections, and comic books. Six million copies of Anita Blake novels are in print. Her Merry Gentry series centers on Meredith Gentry, Princess of the Unseelie court of Faerie, a private detective facing repeated assassination attempts. Both of these fantasy series follow their protagonists as they gain in power and deal with the dangers of worlds in which creatures of legend live. Several media outlets, including USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, and Time have identified her works as significant contributions to the development of the urban-fantasy genre. source

73 books

Rick Riordan

American writer of children’s fantasy novels

73 books

Rosemary Wells

Rosemary Wells (born January 29, 1943) is an American writer and illustrator of children's books. She is well known for using animal characters to address real human issues. Some of her most well known characters are Max and Ruby, Noisy Nora, and Yoko.

73 books

David Weber

72 books

Liz Fielding

Liz Fielding was born on 1th June in a small country town in Berkshire, England, UK. She has been reading since she was knee-high to a gnat. Her mother taught her, the way her mother taught her all the good things in life. Her mother read to her when she was little and then her mother bought her books of her own. Little Women, What Katy Did and Anne of Green Gables. She read them all until the covers fell off. Liz was a secretary and she met John, an engineer, while they were both working in Lusaka, Zambia. They married and had travelled the world together before settling down to raise their family. When Ami, their first kid was born, her husband given her pearl earrings, made from pearls fished from the Bahrain pearl beds by her own husband. Later, they had other kid, Wil. She started writing when her children were small and her husband was working abroad. In 1982 was published her first romance, An Image of You,, was set in Kenya, in a place she knew well, and was plucked from the slush pile because the feisty feminist heroine made her editor laugh. Emotion touched with humor has been the hallmark of her books ever since. Liz lives in the house built by her husband in Wales, near Caermyrddyn, Merlin's Fort. The land is steeped in legend, the hilltops crowned with the remains of ancient castles. She lives in a tiny village that she loves and rarely leaves, keeping in touch with readers and friends through the magic of the Internet. In 2005, when she was nominated for a RITA Award from the Romance Writers of America, she made an exception and flew to Washington for the Romance Writers of America conference, where she had a great time playing tourist as well as meeting up with lots of old friends.

72 books

Holly Black

Holly Black is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of over thirty fantasy novels for kids and teens. She has been a finalist for an Eisner Award and the Lodestar Award, and the recipient of the Mythopoeic Award, a Nebula, and a Newbery Honor. Her books have been translated into 32 languages worldwide and adapted for film. She currently lives in New England with her husband and son in a house with a secret library.

71 books

John Grisham

Long before his name became synonymous with the modern legal thriller, he was working 60-70 hours a week at a small Southaven, Mississippi, law practice, squeezing in time before going to the office and during courtroom recesses to work on his hobby—writing his first novel. Born on February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to a construction worker and a homemaker, John Grisham as a child dreamed of being a professional baseball player. Realizing he didn’t have the right stuff for a pro career, he shifted gears and majored in accounting at Mississippi State University. After graduating from law school at Ole Miss in 1981, he went on to practice law for nearly a decade in Southaven, specializing in criminal defense and personal injury litigation. In 1983, he was elected to the state House of Representatives and served until 1990. One day at the DeSoto County courthouse, Grisham overheard the harrowing testimony of a twelve-year-old rape victim and was inspired to start a novel exploring what would have happened if the girl’s father had murdered her assailants. Getting up at 5 a.m. every day to get in several hours of writing time before heading off to work, Grisham spent three years on A Time to Kill and finished it in 1987. Initially rejected by many publishers, it was eventually bought by Wynwood Press, who gave it a modest 5,000 copy printing and published it in June 1988. That might have put an end to Grisham’s hobby. However, he had already begun his next book, and it would quickly turn that hobby into a new full-time career—and spark one of publishing’s greatest success stories. The day after Grisham completed A Time to Kill, he began work on another novel, the story of a hotshot young attorney lured to an apparently perfect law firm that was not what it appeared. When he sold the film rights to The Firm to Paramount Pictures for $600,000, Grisham suddenly became a hot property among publishers, and book rights were bought by Doubleday. Spending 47 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, The Firm became the bestselling novel of 1991. The successes of The Pelican Brief, which hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and The Client, which debuted at number one, confirmed Grisham’s reputation as the master of the legal thriller. Grisham’s success even renewed interest in A Time to Kill, which was republished in hardcover by Doubleday and then in paperback by Dell. This time around, it was a bestseller. Since first publishing A Time to Kill in 1988, Grisham has written one novel a year (his other books are The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, The Chamber, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury, The Partner, The Street Lawyer, The Testament, The Brethren, A Painted House, Skipping Christmas, The Summons, The King of Torts, Bleachers, The Last Juror, The Broker, Playing for Pizza, The Appeal, and The Associate) and all of them have become international bestsellers. There are currently over 250 million John Grisham books in print worldwide, which have been translated into 29 languages. Nine of his novels have been turned into films (The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, A Time to Kill, The Rainmaker, The Chamber, A Painted House, The Runaway Jury, and Skipping Christmas), as was an original screenplay, The Gingerbread Man. The Innocent Man (October 2006) marked his first foray into non-fiction, and Ford County (November 2009) was his first short story collection. Grisham lives with his wife Renee and their two children Ty and Shea. The family splits their time between their Victorian home on a farm in Mississippi and a plantation near Charlottesville, VA. Grisham took time off from writing for several months in 1996 to return, after a five-year hiatus, to the courtroom. He was honoring a commitment made before he had retired from the law to become a full-time writer: representing the family of a railroad brakeman killed when he was pinned between two cars. Preparing his case with the same passion and dedication as his books’ protagonists, Grisham successfully argued his clients’ case, earning them a jury award of $683,500—the biggest verdict of his career. When he’s not writing, Grisham devotes time to charitable causes, including most recently his Rebuild The Coast Fund, which raised 8.8 million dollars for Gulf Coast relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. He also keeps up with his greatest passion: baseball. The man who dreamed of being a professional baseball player now serves as the local Little League commissioner. The six ballfields he built on his property have played host to over 350 kids on 26 Little League teams.

71 books

Michael Connelly

Michael Connelly is an American author of detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch and criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller. His books, which have been translated into 39 languages, have garnered him many awards. Connelly was the President of the Mystery Writers of America from 2003 to 2004.

71 books

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer. Nathaniel Hawthorne was a 19th century American novelist and short story writer. He is seen as a key figure in the development of American literature for his tales of the nation's colonial history. Shortly after graduating from Bowdoin College, Hathorne changed his name to Hawthorne. Hawthorne anonymously published his first work, a novel titled Fanshawe, in 1828. In 1837, he published Twice-Told Tales and became engaged to Sophia Peabody the next year. He worked at a Custom House and joined a Transcendentalist Utopian community, before marrying Peabody in 1842. The couple moved to The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, later moving to Salem, the Berkshires, then to The Wayside in Concord. The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850, followed by a succession of other novels. A political appointment took Hawthorne and family to Europe before returning to The Wayside in 1860. Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864, leaving behind his wife and their three children. Much of Hawthorne's writing centers around New England and many feature moral allegories with a Puritan inspiration. His work is considered part of the Romantic movement and includes novels, short stories, and a biography of his friend, the United States President Franklin Pierce.

71 books

Norman Bridwell

Norman Bridwell is an American author and cartoonist, best-known for the Clifford the Big Red Dog series of children's books. Bridwell attended John Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, Indiana. He currently resides on Martha's Vineyard, MA, where he continues to write an average of two books a year.

71 books

R. A. Salvatore

Robert Anthony Salvatore (born January 20, 1959) is an American author best known for The DemonWars Saga; and The Legend of Drizzt, for which he created the popular character Drizzt Do'Urden; and Vector Prime, the first novel in the Star Wars: The New Jedi Order series. He has sold more than 15 million copies of his books in the United States alone and twenty-two of his titles have been New York Times best-sellers.

71 books

Avi

Edward Irving Worti (born on December 23, 1937), better known as Avi, is an American author of young adult and children's literature.

70 books

Lisa Kleypas

Lisa Kleypas was born in 1964 in Texas, USA, but when she was only a year old her family moved to Massachusetts, where she grew up with her brother Ki. At 12, Lisa read her first romance novel "The Flame and the Flower" by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss. And during the summer she was 16, she wrote her first manuscript and her parents sent her to a romance writers' conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, where she decided be a romance writer. She studied a political science degree at the Wellesley College, where she met Hillary (Rodham) Clinton. Lisa, who for years wore glasses and dental braces, so she considered herself an ugly duckling, was encouraged by her mother and named Miss Massachusetts in the Miss America competition in 1985. Lisa always loved read romance novels, and during her summer breaks she started to write. Before her graduation, her father said she, that she need obtained a bona fide job, she couldn't spend the rest of her life writing in her parents' basement. Her parents agreed to support her for a few months so that she could finish a manuscript. She ended her novel two months after her gradutation, and she sent the manuscript to an agent, and he called within a day or two, and shortly thereafter it was sold to NAL, when she was only 21. A full-time romance writer since the publishing of her first book. Her books are published in more than fourteen languages and have appeared on bestseller lists such as the New York Times, USA Today, Publishers Weekly, and WaldenBooks. Well-know by her historical romances, many of her novels are setting in the 19th century, in the USA or in the Victorian England, but since 2007, she publishes also contemporany romances. Married since 1986 with Gregory Ellis, Lisa has two children: a son, Griffin and a daughter, Lindsay. The family lives in Washington. She enjoys playing the guitar, reading and cooking (especially elaborate desserts).

70 books

Iris Johansen

Iris Johansen was born on April 7, 1938. She worked for a major airline for many years and traveled extensively. After her two children, Tamara and Roy, left home for High School, she decided to devote her newfound free time to writing. Since she loved reading romance novels, she penned a love story, and found to her surprise that "I was just as voracious a writer as I was a reader." During the 1980's, her name was emblazoned on dozens of slender volumes featuring spirited adventuresses, passionate mystery men and smoldering love scenes. These days, Iris is one of a posse of former romance writers dominating the New York Times bestseller lists: Jayne Ann Krentz, Nora Roberts, Linda Howard, Tami Hoag, Sandra Brown and Tess Gerritsen all came up through the category-romance ranks. Iris Johansen's writing hobby became a career after she sent her first romance novel in to Bantam Love swept. Early on in her career, she developed the habit of following characters from book to book, sometimes introducing minor characters in one novel who then become major figures in another. She developed families, relationships and even fictional countries in her romance novels, which "stretched the boundaries of the standard formulas, "according to Barbara E. Kemp in Twentieth-Century Romance and Historical Writers. In 1991, she broke out of category romance (a term for short books written to conform to the length, style and subject matter guidelines for a publisher's series) with The Wind Dancer, a romantic-suspense novel set in16th-century Italy. She followed it with two sequels, Storm Winds and Reap the Wind, to form a trilogy, then wrote several more stand-alone romance novels before The Ugly Duckling was published in 1996. The Ugly Ducklingwas her first book to be released in hardcover, and the first to significantly broaden her readership beyond her romance fan base. Since then, her plots have gotten tighter and more suspense-driven; critics have praised her "flesh-and-blood characters, crackling dialogue and lean, suspenseful plotting" (Publishers Weekly). Some of her most popular books feature forensic sculptor Eve Duncan, who first appeared in The Face of Deception in 1998. But she seems equally comfortable with male protagonists, and her books have crossed the gender division that often characterizes popular fiction. Indeed, Publishers Weekly called The Search "that rarity: a woman's novel for men." Now, Iris Johansen is a bestselling writer, who has more than twenty million copies of her books in print and has won many awards for her achievements inwriting. "My writing schedule is very disciplined. I try to be up in my office by nine every morning and I work until I've completed at least ten pages. Sometimes that takes four or five hours, sometimes ten or twelve. It depends on the flow, the research, and the pace at which the characters are moving the story. There are times when the story is streaking like a bullet. Then I just hang on and stay with it. I do have a research assistant, my daughter, Tamara. I wouldn't know what to do without her. She's invaluable in finding out both the small details and the big picture, though I do make her want to pull her hair out in frustration sometimes when I ask her if there isn't a way we can make a certain plot point happen. But then she starts to dig and quite often comes up with a way that can be truthful and factual and still keep my story humming." Iris lives near Atlanta, Georgia, where she is currently at work on a new novel, while her daughter, Tamara Brooking, serves as her research assistant. Her son, Roy Johansen, is an Edgar Award-winning screenwriter and novelist, and they have collaborated in some projects.

69 books

Stephanie Laurens

Stephanie Laurens was born in the British colony of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. When she was 5, her family moved to Melbourne, Australia, where she was raised. After continuing through school and earning a Ph.D. in Biochemistry in Australia. Stephanie married, and the marriage moved to Great Britain, taking one of the last true overland journeys from Katmandu to London. Once in London, they began work as research scientists in Kent. They lived in an area surrounded by history. Their own cottage was built in the 16th century, while next door were the protected ruins of an early Roman villa, and nearby was a 14th century castle. After four years in England, the marriage returned to Australia, where she continued to work in cancer research, eventually heading her own research laboratory. One evening Stephanie realized that she did not have any more of her favorite romance novels to read. After years of thinking about writing her own novel, during nights and weekends for the next several months she began crafting her own story. That manuscript, "Tangled Reins", was the first of her books to be published in 1992 by Mills & Boon. After achieving a level of success with her novels, she "retired" from scientific research and became a full-time novelist. Her novels are primarily historical romances set in the British Regency time period. Stephanie and her husband live in a leafy bayside suburb of Melbourne with their two daughters, Stephanie and Lauren, and two cats, Shakespeare and Marlowe.

69 books

Carol Marinelli

Carol Marinelli was born in England to Scottish parents, then emigrated to Australia, where there are loads of Scottish and English people who did exactly the same, so she's very at home there. She lives in the outer suburbs of Melbourne pretty much in her car, driving her three children to their various commitments. Carol first tried to write for Harlequin Mills & Boon while doing her nursing training in London. It was merrily rejected and she was devastated. Rejection became a regular friend over the next few years and she amassed quite a collection. Still, as the years moved on the rejections became more detailed and instead of weeping over them and scorning them, she finally read them. Properly. In 2000 her first romance was accepted for the Medical Romance line and she lived happily ever after. Well, that's what she thought would happen but actually, no, it was then that the hard work really began! Once published she discovered the Romance Writers of Australia it would, she now knows, have been far easier on this journey to have discovered them earlier. Attending her first conference she realized that she wasn't the only person who lived with a constant cinema happening in her head in fact they were all THE SAME! Different but the same and many wonderful friendships were made. Carol now writes for both the Medical Romance and Presents lines and loves them both. One of her goals is to attend the Romance Writers of America conference with a few Romance Writers of Australia, which is a very nice goal to have.

68 books

Lora Leigh

Lora Leigh lives in the rolling hills of Kentucky, often found absorbing the ambience of this peaceful setting. She dreams in bright, vivid images of the characters intent on taking over her writing life, and fights a constant battle to put them on the hard drive of her computer before they can disappear as fast as they appeared. Lora’s family, and her writing life co-exist, if not in harmony, in relative peace with each other. Surrounded by a menagerie of pets, friends, and a teenage son who keeps her quick wit engaged, Lora’s life is filled with joys, aided by her fans whose hearts remind her daily why she writes.

68 books

Caroline B. Cooney

Caroline Bruce Cooney was born in Geneva, New York and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. She became interested in writing while still in grade school, and began publishing her stories when her children were young. She has published more than 75 suspense, mystery, and romance novels for teenagers. She currently resides in Fort Mill, South Carolina.

67 books

Lori Foster

Lori L. was born on November 14. She did not attend college and married with Allen Foster, her High School sweetheart. The marriage settled in Ohio. She held various jobs as a saleslady, a grocery store clerk, and a Proctor and Gamble material handler before having the first of her three sons in 1981, after that she stayed at home to raise them. Unlike many writers, Lori Foster never considered a writing career until she was in her early 30s. In fact, she'd never even read romances until her sister once forced a load of them on her while she was down sick and unable to fight back. But it was a blessing she quickly took to, and before long, she was thoroughly hooked. It seemed a natural progression for the reader to want to write, so Lori penned a romance novel in longhand, strictly for her own entertainment. Once that was done, she borrowed a typewriter and started another. When she attended a local writers' conference and discovered that not many people had ever completed a book, Lori began to realize she might actually have a talent for something that she absolutely loved doing. It was only after writing 10 complete manuscripts that Lori made her first sale to Harlequin in 1996. Her second book launched the Temptation Blaze subseries and since then she's continued writing at a prolific pace. Her books have appeared on the New York Times Extended, Waldenbooks, and USA Today bestseller lists. Lori also contributes to Writer's Digest Magazine and the Romance Writers Report. She regularly presents workshops to her local chapter and at various conferences, including RWA National. Though Lori loves writing, her first priority will always be her family. She, her husband, and their three sons, all humorous, handsome, and honorable fellows, are quickly following in their father's footsteps.

67 books

Maya Banks

Maya Banks is the pen name for Sharon Long. Escaping into the pages of a book is something she's loved to do since she was a child. Now she crafts her own worlds and characters and enjoys spending as much time with them as possible. A southern girl born and bred, she loves life below the Mason Dixon, and more importantly, loves bringing southern characters and settings to life in her stories. She lives in southeast Texas with her husband, three children and assortment of pets. When she's not writing, she loves to hunt and fish, bum on the beach, play poker and travel.

67 books

Robert A. Heinlein

Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called "the dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most popular, influential, and controversial authors of the genre. He set a high standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of literary quality. He was one of the first writers to break into mainstream, general magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, in the late 1940s, with unvarnished science fiction. He was among the first authors of bestselling, novel-length science fiction in the modern, mass-market era. For many years, Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke were known as the "Big Three" of science fiction. (Source.)

67 books

Susan Napier

Susan Napier is a New Zealand writer, formerly a journalist and scriptwriter, who turned to writing after her two sons were born. She wrote over 30 romance novels for Mills & Boon/Harlequin from 1984 to 2008.

67 books

Anne McAllister

Anne McAllister is the pseudonym of Barbara Schenck who is an American best-selling writer of over 55 romance novels since 1985.

66 books

George R. R. Martin

George Raymond Richard Martin (born September 20, 1948), sometimes referred to as GRRM, is an American author and screenwriter of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He is best known for his ongoing A Song of Ice and Fire series of epic fantasy novels. Critics have described Martin's work as dark and cynical. His first novel, Dying of the Light, set the tone for most of his future work; it is set on a mostly abandoned planet that is slowly becoming uninhabitable as it moves away from its sun. This story, and many of Martin's others, have a strong sense of melancholy. His characters are often unhappy, or at least unsatisfied - trying to stay idealistic in a ruthless world. Many have elements of tragic heroes in them. Reviewer T. M. Wagner writes, "Let it never be said Martin doesn't share Shakespeare's fondness for the senselessly tragic." This gloominess can be an obstacle for some readers. The Inchoatus Group writes, "If this absence of joy is going to trouble you, or you’re looking for something more affirming, then you should probably seek elsewhere." (Source)

66 books

Gordon Korman

Gordon Korman was born in Montreal, Quebec. In 1970, he relocated with his parents to Thornhill, Ontario. In 7th grade, he wrote a work that went on to become his first novel in a school writing assignment. It was published under the title This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall in 1978, when Korman was 14 years old. He wrote and published another four books while in high school. After high school, he moved to New York City where he studied film and film writing at New York University. In 1985 he received his B.A. in Dramatic and Visual Writing. He has written more than 75 books. He lives in Great Neck, New York, with his wife and three children.

66 books

Mo Willems

Mo Willems (born February 11, 1968) is an American children's books illustrator and writer.

66 books

Poul Anderson

Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards. Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy. Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously. Source: Goodreads

66 books

Brandon Sanderson

Brandon Sanderson (born December 19, 1975) is an American author known for his intricate and imaginative works in the genres of fantasy and science fiction. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Sanderson developed a passion for writing at a young age. He attended Brigham Young University, where he studied English and later earned a master's degree in creative writing. Sanderson is best known for creating the Cosmere, a vast fictional universe that encompasses many of his fantasy novels, where they share subtle connections and a common mythology, including the Mistborn series and The Stormlight Archive. The Mistborn trilogy, starting with the novel Mistborn: The Final Empire, is a thrilling fantasy heist story set in a dystopian world ruled by a tyrannical lord. The Stormlight Archive, starting with the novel The Way of Kings, is an epic fantasy series that combines political intrigue, war, and extensive world-building. In addition to his work within the Cosmere, Sanderson completed Robert Jordan's epic fantasy series "The Wheel of Time" after Jordan's passing. He has also authored several young adult series, such as The Reckoners and the Skyward series. Sanderson's analytical approach to world-building includes his "Sanderson's Laws of Magic," which distinguish between "hard" and "soft" magic systems in fantasy literature. His ability to create immersive worlds and compelling characters has earned him a dedicated fan base and numerous accolades, including the Hugo Award in 2013 for his novella The Emperor's Soul, the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award for his novels Elantris in 2005, and The Hero of Ages in 2008, as well as David Gemmell Legend Awards in 2011 for The Way of Kings and in 2015 for Words of Radiance. In 2022, Sanderson's Kickstarter campaign for four secret novels became the most successful in history, raising over $41 million. As of 2022, he is a co-creator and former host of the Writing Excuses podcast, an educational podcast for writers by writers that was started in 2008. (Sources: 1,2)

65 books

Helen Brooks

Rita Bradshaw was born on 1949 in Northampton, England, where she was educated as a good Christian by her mother Vi Whitsey. She met Clive, her husband, at the age of 16 and now the magic is still there. They have three lovely children, Cara, Faye, and Benjamin. For years, Rita worked as secretary. Rita began writing in 1990 as she approached that milestone of a birthday 40! She realized her two teenage ambitions (writing a novel and learning to drive) had been lost amid babies and hectic family life, so set about resurrecting them. She sent off a 55,000 word romance called Deceitful Lover to Mills & Boon, that was accepted after one rewrite in 1992 under the pseudonym Helen Brooks, and she passed her driving test (the former was a joy and the latter an unmitigated nightmare!) Under her pen name has written many successful novels and several delightful sagas under her own name, Rita Bradshaw, since 1998. Since becoming a full-time writer Rita's life has been transformed, she has been able to give up her part time secretarial job to write full time and her husband Clive, has also given up his job to become her manager. She has found her occupation one of pure joy and often surprised when her characters develop a mind of their own but she loves exploring what makes people tick and finds the old adage "truth is stranger than fiction" to be absolutely true. Her Mills & Boon books have attracted fans in more than 25 countries around the world. She would love to hear from any readers care of her books. While Rita still lives today in Northamptonshire with her family, she has always had a great fondness for the north-east, where her novels are set, as well as historical family connections in that area. Although having enjoyed some wonderful holidays abroad she has never been tempted to live anywhere else, although she rather likes the idea of a holiday home close to the sea one day. The family have always had a menagerie of animals in the house, which at the present is confined to two endearing and very comical dogs who would make a great double act on TV! The children, friends, and pets all keep the house buzzing and the food cupboards empty but she wouldn't have it any other way. Being a committed Christian and fervent animal lover she finds spare time is always at a premium, but long walks in the countryside with her husband and dogs, meals out followed by the cinema or theatre, reading, swimming, and having friends over for dinner are all fitted in somehow. She also enjoys sitting in her wonderfully therapeutic, rambling old garden in the sun with a glass of red wine, (under the guise of resting while thinking of course!)

65 books

John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck was an American writer. He wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and the novella Of Mice and Men (1937). He wrote a total of 27 books, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and five collections of short stories. In 1962, Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature (Source).

65 books

Kathryn Lasky

65 books

Masashi Kishimoto

65 books

Jane Yolen

"Jane Hyatt Yolen (born February 11, 1939) is an American writer of fantasy, science fiction, and children's books. She is the author or editor of more than 280 books. Her short story Sister Emily's Lightship won the Nebula Award." — Wikipedia

64 books

Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges (Buenos Aires, 24 de agosto de 1899 - Ginebra, 14 de junio de 1986), más conocido como Jorge Luis Borges, fue un destacado escritor de cuentos, poemas y ensayos argentino, extensamente considerado una figura clave tanto para la literatura en habla hispana como para la literatura universal. También fue bibliotecario, profesor, conferencista y traductor. Sus dos libros más conocidos, Ficciones y El Aleph, publicados en los años cuarenta, son recopilaciones de cuentos conectados por temas comunes de forma fantástica, como los sueños, los laberintos, las bibliotecas, los espejos, los autores ficticios y las mitologías europeas (como la griega y la nórdica), con argumentos que exploran ideas filosóficas relacionadas, por ejemplo, con la memoria, la eternidad, la posmodernidad y la metaficción. Las obras de Borges han contribuido ampliamente a la literatura filosófica, al género fantástico y al posestructuralismo. Según marcan numerosos críticos, el comienzo del realismo mágico en la literatura hispanoamericana del siglo XX se debe en gran parte a su obra.

64 books

Hannah Howell

Hannah Dustin Howell (born 1950 in Massachusetts) is a best-selling American author of over 40 historical romance novels. Many of her novels are set in medieval Scotland. She also writes under the names Sarah Dustin, Sandra Dustin, and Anna Jennet.

63 books