Penny Jordan
Personal Information
Description
Penelope "Penny" Jones was born on 24 November 1946 at about seven pounds in a nursing home in Preston, Lancashire, England. She was the first child of Anthony Winn Jones, an engineer, who died at 85, and his wife Margaret Louise Groves Jones. She has a brother, Anthony, and a sister, Prudence "Pru". She had been a keen reader from the childhood - her mother used to leave her in the children's section of their local library whilst she changed her father's library books. She was a storyteller long before she began to write romantic fiction. At the age of eight, she was creating serialised bedtime stories, featuring make-believe adventures, for her younger sister Prue, who was always the heroine. At eleven, she fell in love with Mills & Boon, and with their heroes. In those days the books could only be obtained via private lending libraries, and she quickly became a devoted fan, and was thrilled to bits when the books went on full sale, in shops and she could have them for keeps. Penny left grammar school in Rochdale with O-Levels in English Language, English Literature and Geography. She first discovered Mills & Boon books, via a girl she worked with. She married Steve Halsall, an accountant and a "lovely man", who smoked and drank too heavily, suffered oral cancer with bravery and dignity. Out of his own money, and at a time when he could ill afford it, her late husband bought her the small electric typewriter on which she typed her first novels. Her husband died at the beginning of the 21st century. She has earned a living as a writer since the 1970s when, as a shorthand typist, she entered a competition run by the Romantic Novelists' Association. Although she didn't win, Penny found an agent who was looking for a new Georgette Heyer. She published four regency novels as Caroline Courtney, before changing her nom de plume to Melinda Wright for threebair-hostess romps and then she wrote two thrillers as Lydia Hitchcock. Soon after that, Mills and Boon accepted her first novel for them, Falcon's Prey as Penny Jordan. However, for her present historical romance novels, she has adopted her mother's maiden-name to become Annie Groves. Almost 70m of her 167 Mills and Boon novels have been sold worldwide. As a widow, Penny Halsall lived in a neo-Georgian house in Nantwich, Cheshire, with her Alsatian Sheba and cat Posh. She worked from home, in her kitchen, surrounded by her pets, and welcomed interruptions from her friends and family. She passed away on 31 December 2011.
Books
Captive at the Sicilian Billionaire's command
Rocco Leopardi's demand is nonnegotiable: Julie Simmonds must bring his little nephew to Sicily so that the child may take his rightful place as a Leopardi! At first Rocco thought Julie would be a gold digger, but her unexpected innocence is arousing. When it's proved that Julie is actually the boy's aunt, the sensual Sicilian changes the rules of his game. He's got more than one good reason to keep this inexperienced waif captive and make her his wife!
The Sheikh's Blackmailed Mistress
Life has taught Prince Vereham al a'Karim bin Hakar to control his emotions. Duty to his kingdom drives the enigmatic sheikh. But one unexpected, intensely sexy encounter with inexperienced Samantha McLellan shakes Vere's steely control. And when he discovers that Sam could be betraying his country, he decides to blackmail her--into being his mistress!
Virgin for the Billionaire's Taking
Jay was a maharaja's heir and billionaire businessman, and he'd hired Keira as his interior designer. But why did she turn from hot to cold and then back again? Was she a manipulating gold digger who was using the red-hot chemistry between them to try to increase her financial reward? Then Jay discovered that Keira was a virgin! And, according to his code, the cost of taking virginity was marriage. Was he prepared to pay the price?
A Matter of Trust
Mission
Silk
1 v. ; 18 cm
Fire with Fire
Cyrocelled for twelve years, Caine Riordan wakes up to a different world and embarks on a mission to investigate whether primitive beings in Delta Pavonis were once sentient life forms, but someone does not want his mission to succeed.
High society
"An illustrated cultural history of drug use from its roots in animal intoxication to its future in designer neurochemicals"--Provided by publisher.
The perfect lover
Priest, a young Britisher with a flair for finding quietly tantalizing sci-fi hypotheses, works some clever variations on the well-worn notions of the dream-world and alternate world. ""The perfect lover"" is an imaginary place--Wessex, product of a 1985 experiment in group illusion being conducted near Dorchester. The participants have been hypnotically projected into a ""future"" which has been laid out along general guidelines but then allowed to develop into the sum of their communal imaginings. Their unconscious bodies rest in elaborate life-support systems while they go about their Wessex lives sealed off from any memory of ""previous"" existence. The world they have made--an island cut off from England by the ""Blandford Passage"" and the ""Somerset Sea""--is a lovely resort, serenely divorced from Soviet England and its concerns. Four years into the project, a new director is brought in: Paul Mason, a cunning sociopath bent on reshaping the imaginative consensus on which the idyll of Wessex rests. Only two participants are able to resist his control: Julia Stretton, his former mistress, and her new lover David Harkman, who has developed a strange immunity to the post-hypnotic triggers which periodically withdraw the others from their trance. Priest develops his ingenious premise with unobtrusive grace, but somehow not with the thoroughness it deserves. The idea really demands a longer, slowermoving narrative with a larger weight of detail. Perhaps the chief flaw here is the character of Mason, a particularly flimsy cardboard villain where Priest's provocative design demands a figure of real menace.
Out of the night
Story of a German who worked as an agent for the Communists against the Nazis.
Silver
Even though he is the runt of the litter from her father's prize sled-racing dog, ten-year-old Rachel plans to train her puppy to become a champion racer and determines to track him down when he mysteriously disappears.
Marriage
Now or never
Discusses the magnitude of the problems of waste disposal, pesticides, and atomic, air, water, and noise pollution.
One Night in His Arms
Still shamed by her teenage infatuation with Ranulf Carrington, Sylvie Bennett knew it was important that he understand they were now meeting on equal terms. She would do her utmost to play it cool and distant-his cruel words at their last meeting had crushed the youthful passion out of her--so that all they shared now was a purely business relationship! Everything was different, yet nothing had changed--Sylvie's body still ached for his. Maybe Ran would never come to love her, but still she knew she'd do almost anything for just one night in his arms ....
An Unbroken Marriage
Their antagonism was instant and mutual Simon Herries was dominating and arrogant, and he had readily jumped to the wrong conclusions about India. "You don't know me, " she stated, "yet you accuse me of trying to steal someone else's husband!" Evidence and appearance seemed to support his claim, and Simon had his own method of dealing with the problem. At the time it proved an effective solution, but when his scheme backfired, India was left to face a future of heartbreak and unhappiness.
The Friendship Barrier
Could they ever be more than friends? Jake was Stephanie's employer... her best friend ... and if he hadn't had to rescue her from a gang of youths two years ago, he could have been so much more.... Now there was an invisible barrier between them, which--until recently--Jake had patiently respected. He alone knew why Stephanie shied away from men, understood why she had to confront her fear before putting the past behind them both. But Stephanie couldn't cross the line separating friend from lover without first facing a greater fear--the fear of losing the man who meant everything to her.
One-Click Buy: February Harlequin Presents
Add to your collection: Get all February 2008 Harlequin Presents with one click!Bad-boy billionaires, arrogant aristocrats and ruthless tycoons--all powerful men--meet their match in the arms of innocent beauties and feisty spitfires, who teach them a lesson or two about the power of love. Bundle includes A Royal Bride at the Sheikh’s Command by Penny Jordan, The Greek Tycoon’s Defiant Bride by Lynne Graham, The Guardian’s Forbidden Mistress by Miranda Lee, Bought: One Island, One Bride by Susan Stephens, The Sicilian’s Virgin Bride by Sarah Morgan, Expecting His Love-Child by Carol Marinelli, The Billionaire’s Marriage Mission by Helen Brooks and One Night in His Bed by Christina Hollis.
A Treacherous Seduction
When Beth met Alex Andrews on a business trip to Prague, she was determined not to fall for this magnetic stranger. Still recovering from a heartbreaking experience with one rogue male, she had no intention of getting involved with another! But Alex was set on seduction. Should she trust his words of passion, or did he have a hidden, even treacherous, agenda?