Marie Donovan

To award-winning author Marie Donovan, writing romance is a dream come true after so many years of avid reading. She got her fill of tragedies and unhappy endings by majoring in opera/vocal performance and Spanish literature. During those years of singing about operatic heroines who inevitably met bad ends, and reading about political prisons and horrible civil wars, she devoured romances whenever she could.

Her first attempt at romance fiction was a gothic-type short contemporary where the teenage heroine actually ran into the dark and stormy night to escape her abusive father. That manuscript currently lurks in the depths of her hard drive, waiting to be cannibalized for a future book.

After taking off several years from writing fiction, Marie won a bookstore gift certificate and took it as a sign to get started writing romance again. She promptly ordered several how-to books on writing romance novels and read them until they were dog-eared. Fortunately, as she smartened up about writing romances, so did her heroines. Harlequin's wonderful Blaze line inspired her to try her hand at sensual romance. Her manuscript won several Romance Writers of America chapter contests and sold to the Blaze series in January 2005. When not writing, she enjoys reading, gardening and yoga.