Penny Jordan: Churned out love stories in her socks
Posted By Admin on January 31, 2012
Penny Jordan worked as a secretary in a bank before she fired off a manuscript to Mills Boon and became one of the worlds biggest-selling romance authors, selling more than 90 million copies of nearly 190 titles.
In books such as The Dutiful Wife, The Reluctant Surrender and The Sicilian Bosss Wife, Penny Jordan (whose real name was Penny Halsall) delighted her overwhelmingly female reader-ship with tales of all-consuming love affairs between masterful men and swooning heroines: She risked a second nervous look at the strong, almost cruel lines of his face, ran a typical passage, the nose that spoke of a lineage that went back to the days when Wales was the birthplace of men born to lead others; the tight aristocratic line of his jaw; and most of all, that almost shockingly sexual, rich, thick hair that for some reason had her fingers curling into protestingly protective small fists as she fought against their instinctive urge to reach out and touch it.
As she got into her stride, Penny Jordan churned out 5,000 words a day, writing four Mills Boon novels a year, as well as two historical sagas for HarperCollins (as Annie Groves). She developed a routine, bashing out stories on her electric typewriter on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, leaving the rest of the week free for household chores.
Ruthless ruler/virgin bride was one of several popular stock scenarios. Penny Jordan admitted, however, she found it difficult to write the sex scenes (Mills Boon couples usually do it at least twice per book), observing that it is difficult to find new ways of writing about male and female genitalia without sounding silly. In any case, the sex was not the most important aspect: The appeal of romance is love, she declared. And thats universal.
She was born Penelope Jones in Preston, Lancashire, on Nov. 24, 1946. As a child she made up stories to entertain her sister, and by her teens was an avid reader of Mills Boon romances.
After leaving school, she worked as a typist in a bank in Manchester. One day she spotted an ad in Womans Weekly, appealing for new writers for Mills Boon. She sent off a manuscript and to her surprise it was accepted. For a while she continued to work for the bank, writing in her spare time.
For the first five years, she wrote one short book a month for 10 months each year. Her first novel, Falcons Prey, was published in 1981. She also published historical fiction under the names Caroline Courtney, Melinda Wright and Lydia Hitchcock.
Though she became Mills Boons most prolific author, she led a modest life in rural Cheshire: Its not very glamorous. People certainly wouldnt think so if they saw me sitting in my woolly socks at the kitchen table. Many times I sit at the typewriter and think: Why am I doing this?
While her books had happy endings, her own life was marked by tragedy. In 2002, her husband, Steve Halsall, 56, died of cancer after a long battle with alcohol.
Jordan was 65, when she died on Dec. 31.
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