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UNITED STATES AUTHOR · FICTION · HISTORICAL

Laura Kinsale

16
BOOKS
4.2
AVG RATING (29)
4
READERS

Laura Kinsale grew up in a small country town, surrounded by the influence of her family's women: her mother, her grandmother and some maiden aunts. During her childhood she dreamed to be a painter, own a twenty-thousand acre ranch in Arizona or the first woman president. But, she became interested into geology because near her grandmother's house, there was a road-cut, that it showed the layers of limestone clearly, and there were fossils in it. Laura obtained a Master of Science in Geology from the University of Texas at Austin. She worked as petroleum geologist, a career which consisted of getting out of bed in the middle of the night and driving hundreds of miles alone across west Texas to sit at drilling rigs, wear a hard hat, and attempt to boss around oil-covered males considerably larger than herself. While working, also spending a great deal of time sitting rigs and living in horrid little motel courts in small towns, and she started reading a lot. It was pure escapism for her. She didn't really consider writing as a serious career until she figured out her first plot, at thirty-five years after six years as a geologist. Laura Kinsale became a winner and multiple nominee for the Best Book of the Year award given by the Romance Writers of America. Her heroes are full of flaws or with physical problems, and her heroines also are imperfect. She says: "It's well known that I think making the heroine too perfect is a great way to create a character readers will hate!". She spend long periods of time, attempting to figure out What-Happens-Next, and she confesses that her husband, David, greatly assists her in figuring out how to end a scene. She says: "Really, his name should go also on the cover too, but he refuses. I wonder why?". From 1985 to 1994, she wrote one book a year, but she decided she needed more time to write her books. Laura divides her time between Santa Fe and Dallas.

United States
Wikipedia

"WHAT DO YOU suppose they did to the poor devil?"

— from The Dream Hunter, 1994

Most acclaimed

#2

The prince of midnight

5.0 (2)

From Publishers Weekly Romance readers should be enchanted with Kinsale's ( Seize the Fire ) unlikely 18th-century duo: a staunchly unsentimental heroine and the has-been highwayman who joins her quest for vengeance. Leigh Strachan's parents and sisters are dead, and she's determined to murder the man responsible: The Right Reverend James Chilton. To this end, she tracks down S. T. Maitland, once the infamous robber called the Prince of Midnight but now a recluse--he can teach her how to handle a gun and a sword. But her "prince" is a disappointment: he's deaf in one ear, inclined to dizzy spells, a hopeless romantic starved for female company--and he fancies a wolf as a housepet. Just as Leigh concludes that S.T. is useless, he decides to become her champion. As they travel to Leigh's home to challenge Chilton, each emerges from a kind of cocoon: S.T. regains his skills, Leigh her capacity to feel affection. Unfortunately the unscrupulous reverend and his deluded followers are far less interesting than the bantering Leigh and S.T., and the prolonged confrontation seems more drab than dramatic

#1

The Dream Hunter

1994

3.8 (4)

In the ethereal world of dreams, there are champions who fight to protect the dreamer and there are demons who prey on them… Arik is such a predator. Condemned by the gods to live eternity without emotions, Arik can only feel when hes in the dreams of others. For thousands of years, hes drifted through the human unconscious, searching for sensation. Now hes finally found a dreamer whose vivid mind can fill his emptiness. Dr. Megeara Kafieri watched her father ruin himself and his reputation as he searched to prove Atlantis was real. Her deathbed promise to him to salvage his reputation has now brought her to Greece where she intends to prove once and for all that the fabled island is right where her father said it was. But frustration and bad luck dog her every step. Especially the day they find a stranger floating in the sea. His is a face shes seen many times…. in her dreams. What she doesn’t know is that Arik holds more than the ancient secrets that can help her find the mythical isle of Atlantis. He has made a pact with the god Hades: In exchange for two weeks as a mortal man, he must return to Olympus with a human soul. Megeara’s soul. With a secret society out to ruin her expedition, and mysterious accidents that keep threatening her life, Megeara refuses to quit. She knows shes getting closer to Atlantis and as she does, she stumbles onto the truth of what Arik really is. For Arik his quest is no longer simple. No human can know of a Dream-Hunters existence. His dream of being mortal has quickly turned into his own nightmare and the only way to save himself will be to sacrifice the very thing he wanted to be human for. The only question is, will he?

#3

Flowers from the Storm

2003

4.1 (9)

The Duke of Jervaulx was brilliant and dangerous. Considered dissolute, reckless, and extravagant, he was transparently referred to as the 'D of J' in scandal sheets, where he and his various exploits featured with frequency. But sometimes the most womanising rake can be irresistible, and even his most casual attentions fascinated the sheltered Maddy Timms, quiet daughter of a simple mathematician.

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