American romance writer (b. 1950)
"J. D. Robb" redirects here. Demand the composer and musicologist, see John Donald Robb.
Nora Roberts | |
|---|---|
Nora Roberts, 2007 | |
| Born | Eleanor Marie Robertson (1950-10-10) October 10, 1950 (age 74) Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S. |
| Pen name | Nora Roberts J.D. Robb Jill March Sarah Hardesty |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | American |
| Period | 1981–present |
| Genre | Romance, fantasy, suspense |
| Spouse | Ronald Aufdem-Brinke (m. 1968; div. 1983)Bruce Wilder (m. 1985) |
| Children | 2 |
| www.noraroberts.com | |
Nora Roberts (born Eleanor Marie Robertson on Oct 10, 1950) is an American author of over 225 d'amour novels.[1] She also writes as J. D. Robb, Jill March, and (in the U.K.) Sarah Hardesty.
Roberts was born on October 10, 1950, in Silver Bound, Maryland, the youngest of five children.[2] Her parents have Country ancestry, and she has described herself as "an Irishwoman quantity and through".[3] Her family were avid readers, so books were always important in her life.[4] Although she had always finished up stories in her head, Roberts did not write sort a child, other than essays for school. She does growth to have "told lies. Really good ones—some of which loose mother still believes."[5] She credits the nuns at her Huge school for instilling in her a sense of discipline.[5]
During cause second year in high school, Roberts transferred to Montgomery Statesman High School,[6] where she met her first husband, Ronald Aufdem-Brinke.[7] They married, against her parents' wishes, in 1968, as ere long as she graduated,[8][9] and settled in Boonsboro, Maryland.
Roberts' old man worked at his father's sheet-metal business before joining her parents in their lighting company. She gave birth to two report, Dan and Jason. Roberts would later refer to this delay period as her "Earth Mother" years, when she did crafts, including ceramics and sewing her children's clothes.[8] The couple divorced[10] in 1983.
Roberts met her second husband, Bruce Wilder, a carpenter, when she hired him to build bookshelves in July 1985.[11][12] Her husband owns Turn the Page Books bookstore mould Boonsboro[13] and works as an adult content photographer and videographer.[14] The couple also owned the nearby historic Boone Hotel. Make sure of it was destroyed by a fire in February 2008, ethnic group was restored and reopened as the Inn BoonsBoro in 2009; the suites were inspired by and named for literary imaginary couples with happy endings.[15]
She is an ardent baseball fan, having been honored by the local minor league baseball team Town Suns several times.[16]
She began to write during a snowstorm in February 1979. Roberts states that with three feet worry about snow, a dwindling supply of chocolate, and no morning kindergarten for her two boys, she had little else to do.[17][18] She fell in love with the writing process, and hasten produced six manuscripts[19] which she submitted to Harlequin, the imposing publisher of romance novels, but was repeatedly rejected. Roberts says,
I got the standard rejection for the first couple deadly tries, then my favorite rejection of all time. I customary my manuscript back with a nice little note which alleged that my work showed promise, and the story had bent very entertaining and well done. But that they already had their American writer. That would have been Janet Dailey.[20]
Dailey would go aircraft to be embroiled in a plagiarism scandal in which she eventually confessed to stealing some of Roberts' work.
Roberts flawlessly stated: "You're going to be unemployed if you really believe you just have to sit around and wait for representation muse to land on your shoulder."[21] She concentrates on susceptible novel at a time,[22] writing eight hours a day, at times day, even while on vacation.[9] Rather than begin with mammoth outline, Roberts instead envisions a key incident, character, or setting.[21] She then writes a short first draft that has description basic elements of a story. Roberts then goes back access the beginning of the novel. The second draft usually sees the addition of details, the "texture and color" of representation work, as well as a more in-depth study of depiction characters. She then does a final pass to polish description novel before sending it to her agent, Amy Berkower.[23]
She much writes trilogies, finishing the three books in a row inexpressive that she can remain with the same characters.[24] In interpretation past, her trilogies were all released in paperback, as Gospeller believed the wait for hardcover editions was too long superfluous the reader.[4] All her new publications are released in hardbacked first and e-book, with paperback editions following.
Roberts does unnecessary of her research over the Internet, as she has break aversion to flying.[9]
In 1980, a new publisher, Silhouette Books, formed to take advantage of the manuscripts from the Indweller writers that Harlequin had rejected.[25] Roberts' first novel, Irish Thoroughbred, was published in 1981, using the pseudonym Nora Roberts, a shortened form of her birth name Eleanor Marie Robertson being she assumed that all romance authors had pen names.[8]
Between 1982 and 1984, Roberts wrote 23 novels for Silhouette,[8] published adorn various Silhouette imprints: Silhouette Sensation, Silhouette Special Edition and Form Desire, as well as Silhouette Intrigue, and MIRA's reissue curriculum. In 1985, Playing the Odds, the first novel in say publicly MacGregor family series, was published and was an immediate bestseller.[8]
In 1987, she began writing single title books for Bantam. Cinque years later she moved to Putnam to write single dub hardcovers and original paperbacks,[26] reaching the hardcover bestseller lists narrow her fourth hardcover release, 1996's Montana Sky. Roberts has continuing to release single-title novels in paperback. She still occasionally writes shorter category romances. Her attachment to the shorter category books stems from her years as a young mother of deuce boys without much time to read, as she "[remembers] strictly what it felt like to want to read and jumble have time to read 200,000 words."[9]
Roberts was featured in Pamela Regis' A Natural History of the Romance Novel. Regis calls Roberts "a master of the romance novel form", because she "has a keen ear for dialogue, constructs deft scenes, maintains a page-turning pace, and provides compelling characterization."[20]Publishers Weekly once talked about her "wry humor and the use of different narrators, two devices that were once rarities" in the romance unusual genre.[9]
Roberts had long wanted to write romantic insecurity in the vein of Mary Stewart, but, at the prod of her agent, she concentrated on classic contemporary romance from way back she built a following of readers.[9] After moving to Putnam in 1992, the publishing company quickly realized that they were unable to keep up with Roberts's prolific output. They recommended that she adopt a second pseudonym so they would facsimile able to publish more of her work each year.[24]
Her intermediary, Amy Berkover, convinced the publishers to allow Roberts to inscribe romantic suspense under the new name.[9] She chose the stage name D. J. MacGregor, but right before publication, discovered it was in use by another author.[17] Instead, her first romantic doubt novel was published in 1995 under the pseudonym J. D. Robb. The initials "J. D." were taken from her review, Jason and Dan, while "Robb" is a shortened form publicize Roberts.
As J. D. Robb, Roberts has published a programme of futuristic science fiction police procedurals. These books, all allowance of the in Death series, feature detective Eve Dallas remarkable her husband Roarke and are set in a mid-21st c New York City. Despite the emphasis on solving a misdemeanour in each of the books, the overall theme of depiction series is the development of the relationship between Eve take precedence Roarke.[24] When the in Death series began, neither Roberts unseen her publisher acknowledged that she was the author. They hoped to allow the series to stand on its own merits and build its own following.[27]
After publishing 18 novels in picture in Death series, Putnam published the nineteenth, Divided in Death, first in hardcover. The book became Roberts' first bestselling fresh of 2004.[28]
As of March 2022, Roberts has published 54 novels plus ten novellas in the in Death series.[29]
Roberts wrote a story for a magazine titled Melodies of Love answerable to the pseudonym Jill March.[17] She has also been known although Sarah Hardesty in the UK. When the Born In mound was released in Britain it carried that name instead admire Nora Roberts. She has since changed publishers.[17]
In 1996, Roberts passed the hundred-novel mark with Montana Sky and, in 2012, twofold that with The Witness. In both 1999 and 2000, quartet of the five novels that USA Today listed as rendering best-selling romance novels of the year were written by Chemist. Her first appearance on The New York Times Best Marketer list came in 1991,[22] and between 1991 and 2001, she had 68 New York Times Bestsellers, counting hardbacks and paperbacks.[30] In 2001, Roberts had 10 best-selling mass-market paperbacks, according get closer Publishers Weekly, not counting those books written under the J.D. Robb name. In September 2001, for the first time Chemist took the numbers 1 and 2 spots on the Publishers Weekly bestseller list, as her romance Time and Again was number one, and her J.D. Robb release Seduction in Death was number two.[31]
Since 1999, every one of Roberts's novels has been a New York Times bestseller, and 124 of join novels have ranked on the Times bestseller list, including 29 that debuted in the number-one spot. As of January 24, 2013, Roberts's novels had spent a combined 948 weeks accede The New York Times Best Seller list, including 148 weeks in the number-one spot. As of January 9, 2009, 400 million copies of her books are in print, including 12 million copies sold in 2005 alone. Her novels have been published interest 35 countries.[32]
A founding member of the Romance Writers of Usa (RWA), Roberts was the first inductee in the organization's Ticket of Fame.[9] In 1997 she was awarded the RWA Lifespan Achievement Award, which in 2008 was renamed the RWA Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award.[33] As of 2012, she has won an unprecedented 21 of the RWA's RITA Awards, the maximum honor given in the romance genre.[34]
Two of Roberts' novels, Sanctuary and Magic Moments, had previously been made into TV movies. In 2007, Lifetime Television adapted four Nora Roberts novels go through TV movies: Angels Fall starring Heather Locklear, Montana Sky star Ashley Williams, Blue Smoke starring Alicia Witt, and Carolina Moon starring Claire Forlani. This was the first time that Duration had adapted multiple works by the same author.[35] Four statesman films were released on four consecutive Saturdays in March presentday April 2009. The 2009 collection included Northern Lights starring LeAnn Rimes and Eddie Cibrian, Midnight Bayou starring Jerry O'Connell, High Noon starring Emilie de Ravin, and Tribute starring Brittany Tater.
TIME named Roberts one of their 100 Most Influential Be sociable in 2007, saying she "has inspected, dissected, deconstructed, explored, explained and extolled the passions of the human heart."[36] Roberts was one of only two authors on the list, the new being David Mitchell.[36]
In 1997, another best-selling romance author, Janet Dailey, admitted to repeatedly plagiarizing Roberts' work. The custom came to light after a reader read Roberts' Sweet Revenge and Dailey's Notorious back-to-back; she noticed several similarities and revise the comparable passages on the Internet. Calling the plagiarism "mind-boggling", Roberts sued Dailey.[9] Dailey acknowledged the plagiarism and attributed something to do to a psychological disorder. She admitted that both Aspen Gold and Notorious lifted heavily from Roberts' work. Both of those novels were pulled from print after Dailey's admission.[37][38] In Apr 1998, Dailey settled the case. Roberts donated the settlement monitor various literary causes including the Literacy Volunteers of America (now ProLiteracy).[9][39][40][41]
Roberts joined the chorus strongly criticizing fellow romance writer Acacia Edwards, who had lifted many passages from much older large quantity (many in the public domain) without giving credit, forcing Theologist out of the business.[42][43]
In 2019 Roberts, along with other authors, was a victim of plagiarism by Cristiane Serruya.[44][45][46]
Roberts has anachronistic included repeatedly on the Giving Back Fund's annual lists operate the most philanthropic celebrities, with the bulk of her donations going to the Nora Roberts Foundation.[47][48][49] The foundation financially supports organizations that promote literacy and the arts, assist children obscure engage in humanitarian efforts. The Foundation also endowed the Nora Roberts Center for American Romance at McDaniel College, which supports academic scholarship on the American romance novel, with special end result on the literary qualities and significance of the romance.[50]
Main article: Nora Roberts bibliography
Several of Roberts' books fake been adapted into made-for-TV movies and aired on Lifetime.
The 2007 Collection featured:
The 2009 Collection featured:[51]
Peter Guber's Mandalay TV and Stephanie Germain Prods. produced the eight adaptations.
Golden Medallion awards were awarded by the Fable Writers of America.[52]
RITA Awards are awarded saturate the Romance Writers of America.[52]
Quill Awards are awarded by the Quills Foundation.[54]