Background

Lisa Kleypas was born on November 5, 1964, in Texas, United States. When she was just a year old, her family moved to Massachusetts. From the age of twelve to twenty-four, she lived in the Concord/Lexington area.

Education

Lisa graduated from Wellesley College with a political science degree.

Career

After graduating from Wellesley College with a political science degree, Lisa published her first novel at age twenty-one. Her books are published in more than 20 languages and are bestsellers all over the world. Lisa writes for Avon and is represented by her agent Mel Berger of the William Morris agency.

Lisa was named Miss Massachusetts in the 1985 Miss America competition. Among the challenges she faced: wearing a banner with such a long state name when she is only 5'2". Because of the rule that contestants had to tuck the excess length of the banner into their swimsuits, she became known as "Miss Massachu."

At the competition in Atlantic City, Lisa's talent was singing an original composition, which won her a "talented nonfinalist" award. And to her delight, she got to keep the big sparkly crown, which sits on her bookshelf and now attracts keen interest from her daughter. In 1998 Lisa's novel "Stranger In My Arms" was given the Waldenbooks Award for greatest sales growth. The following year, Lisa's "Someone To Watch Over Me" was a Rita finalist at the Romance Writers of America convention.

In 2002 Lisa's novel "Suddenly You" was a Rita finalist and Lisa won the Rita award for her Christmas anthology novella featured in the Dorchester publication "Wish List." A banner year, Lisa's novel "Lady Sophia's Lover" was awarded Best Sensuous Historical Romance from Romantic Times magazine, and "Lady Sophia's Lover" was given a starred review in Publishers Weekly, as was "When Strangers Marry."

Over the following years, Lisa continued to garner critical and popular success. Lisa's novel "Worth Any Price" was awarded a starred review from Publishers Weekly. "Worth Any Price" and "Where's My Hero" was listed in the Amazon Editor's Top Ten Picks for Best Romance of 2003. "Worth Any Price" won the RITA award for best Short Historical and a few months later, "Secrets of a Summer Night" (Nov 2004) received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly.

"It Happened One Autumn" (Oct 05) was a finalist in the Short Historical Category of the 2006 RITA Awards, and in 2007, Lisa had two finalists for RITA Awards: "The Devil in Winter" and "Scandal in Spring" Lisa was a keynote speaker at the Romance Writers of America July conference. Listen to her speech.

Lisa's first contemporary novel "Sugar Daddy" was a finalist for the RITA Award "Best Novel With Strong Romantic Elements" while "Mine Till Midnight" was a New York Times Bestseller and a finalist in the RITA Awards "Best Historical Romance" category. Lisa followed up that success with her second contemporary novel, "Smooth Talking Stranger", which hit the New York Times Bestseller List, as did "Tempt Me At Twilight" and "Married By Morning" which was #3 on New York Times Bestseller list.

In 2011, re-releases of two of Lisa's early books made the New York Times Bestseller list, as did her contemporary novel, Rainshadow Road, released in 2012, which has been nominated for the Romantic Times Book Reviews "Best Contemporary Romance" Award. Dream Lake, the 3rd of the Friday Harbor Series was also a NY Times Bestseller. It was followed by Crystal Cove in 2013.

In December 2012, Lisa's book, Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor was the basis for the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, Christmas With Holly. In July 2015, Lisa was honored to emcee the Romance Writers of America Awards Show. Lisa returned to Historicals in 2016 with a new series The Ravenels, and all the books debuted on the New York Times Bestsellers list and, much to her fans' delight, characters from previous books made cameos.

Achievements

• Lisa Kleypas' major achievement is in becoming a New York Times bestselling author who was first awarded the Waldenbooks Award for greatest sales growth, Someone to Watch Over Me in 1998. Then she received the Romantic Times Magazine Best Sensuous Historical Romance award in 2002 for her novel Lady Sophia's Lover. In 2002 Publishers Weekly starred reviews for Lady Sophia's Lover and When Strangers Marry and in 2003 for her novel Worth Any Price.
  
  Lisa was an Amazon Editor's Top Ten Picks for Best Romance of 2003 for the novel Where's My Hero and Worth Any Price. In 2004 Publishers Weekly starred review for Secrets of a Summer Night novel. In 2006 Kleypas was a Romance Writers of America RITA Award finalist for her novel Short Historical Category, It Happened One Autumn and in 2007 for Short Historical Category, The Devil in Winter and Scandal in Spring.

Works

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• book

  • Mine Till Midnight

    (When an unexpected inheritance elevates her family to the...)

    2007
  • Dreaming of You

    (When shy and secluded author Sara Fielding ventures from ...)

    1994
  • Stranger in My Arms

    (A classic tale of a noble lady whose life is upended when...)

    1998
  • Lady Sophia's Lover

    (Why is Lady Sophia looking for a lover? And could she sed...)

    2002
  • Worth Any Price

    (Nick Gentry, the most seductive and dangerous man in Engl...)

    2003
  • Smooth Talking Stranger

    (The last Travis brother, Jack, is at center stage in this...)

    2009
  • Seduce Me at Sunrise

    (Kev Merripen has longed for the beautiful, well-bred Winn...)

    2008
  • Again the Magic

    (Lady Aline Marsden was brought up to marry a man of her o...)

    2004
  • Suddenly You

    (She was unmarried, untouched and almost thirty, but novel...)

    2002
  • Devil's Daughter

    (Although beautiful young widow Phoebe, Lady Clare, has ne...)

    2019
  • Brown-Eyed Girl

    (Wedding planner Avery Crosslin may be a rising star in Ho...)

    2015
  • A Wallflower Christmas

    (Lisa Kleypas's A Wallflower Christmas takes a trip to Vic...)

    2008
  • Married by Morning

    (For two years, Catherine Marks has been a paid companion ...)

    2010
  • Love, Come to Me

    (When strong and handsome Heath Rayne pulled Lucinda Caldw...)

    1988
  • Love in the Afternoon

    (As a lover of animals and nature, Beatrix Hathaway has al...)

    2010
  • Secrets of a Summer Night

    (The Wallflowers Four young ladies at the side of the ball...)

    2005
  • Chasing Cassandra: The Ravenels

    (Railway magnate Tom Severin is wealthy and powerful enoug...)

    2020
  • Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor

    (One rain-slicked night, six-year-old Holly lost the only ...)

    2010
  • Marrying Winterborne

    (A ruthless tycoon Savage ambition has brought common-born...)

    2016
  • It Happened One Autumn

    (Headstrong American heiress Lillian Bowman has come to En...)

  • A Scandal in Spring

    (Quirky and fun-loving American heiress Daisy Bowman is th...)

    2009
  • Cold-Hearted Rake

    (Devon Ravenel, London's most wickedly charming rake, has ...)

  • Then Came You

    (Reckless beauty Lily Lawson delights in shocking London s...)

    1993
  • Crystal Cove

    (One man without a soul who wants her more than life itsel...)

    2013
  • Dream Lake

    (Alex Nolan is about as bitter and cynical as they come. O...)

    2012
  • Sugar Daddy

    (Hardy Cates sees Liberty as completely off-limits. His ow...)

    2007
  • The Devil in Winter

    (A marriage of convenience is the only solution. No one wo...)

    2007
  • Devil in Spring

    (Most debutantes dream of finding a husband. Lady Pandora ...)

    2017
  • Hello Stranger

    (A woman who defies her time Dr. Garrett Gibson, the only ...)

    2018

Views

Lisa Kleypas tends to write rather sexy love scenes: "I believe what makes a love scene really sizzle is to always remind the reader of the emotional context of the scene... what has led to this act, and how it will change their relationship from now on, and why making love with this one person is different from doing it with someone else. Scenes where the writer does little but describe perfect bodies interacting with each other leave me cold.

One of the things that historical novelists always have to balance is the history with the novel - we have to show a deep knowledge of history and use that knowledge to craft believable emotional novels, but at the same time, we don’t want to bore readers with… say… animal husbandry.

In terms of overall career, the most important thing I can ever tell anyone, including myself, is to focus on the joy of what you're doing. You have to maintain a sense of fun and playfulness that fuel your creativity. There are times when that seems impossible. So many things will chip away at you… worries over sales numbers, money, business, critics, reviews, and your own insecurities. It's even worrisome when you write something that pleases a lot of people because that leads to questions like, "How can I do that again? Should I try to write something similar? Different? Is what I'm writing now going to please people that way again? What if it doesn't?"

Quotations: "There were two challenges - the first being the question of how much to reveal about the hero. I think it is fairly obvious from early on in the story that he is not the original husband. The drama and mystery come from his motivations for having taken the real Hawksworth's place. I wanted the new Hawksworth to be accessible without sacrificing the mystery and the touch of darkness that makes him intriguing. The second challenge came from the fact that I was having a few personal problems that kept distracting me from work. The other times in my life that this has happened, such as when I was pregnant and had terrible morning sickness for months, I felt that the novel I happened to be working on turned out a little weaker than the usual ones. I have high standards for romance novels, my own and everyone else's, and two things that must never be sacrificed are sensuality and sparkle. When I say "sparkle", I don't necessarily mean humor - I'm referring to that wonderful excitement of an inspired story... that indefinable something that causes you to announce to your husband that there will be no dinner this evening, and don't bother me for the next three hours while I read. So while I was having this difficult year, I didn't want "Stranger" to suffer... and somehow, I was able to find a way to use my problems in a positive way. I escaped to my fantasy world each day and used my writing to work through an adverse situation, and I think it may have even turned out better than if my life had been picture-perfect."

"My first novel contained a forced seduction scene, and it made me so uncomfortable that I had the hero being sorry and apologizing for the entire rest of the book. I have never done one since. Elements of conflict and challenges are just fine for a love scene, but whether I'm reading or writing one, I always have to believe completely that a hero would instantly stop if a woman refused him. It's hard to explain where I draw the line, except to say that I know brutality when I read it. Now I might sound wishy-washy when I sincerely add that this is fantasy fiction, and therefore a hero's forceful (but never cruel) behavior is often done in a way that makes it perfectly acceptable to me. And I don't buy any arguments that romance readers might be wrongly influenced by these scenes - these women are certainly able to separate reality from fantasy."

"I spend the most time and effort in working on dialogue. The language of the characters must be sufficiently elegant and rich to give it a historical feel, but it must also be clean and natural enough to keep from interfering with the "flow" of the story. And I try to weed out anachronistic words or phrases, which jar so terribly."

"The biggest challenge is getting the voice right - I don't like my historical characters to sound too contemporary and vice versa. So I'm constantly reworking narrative and dialogue, compulsively playing around with words and looking up etymology. It feels more natural for me to write in the historical voice - I have no idea why. And it's always more difficult to create conflict in my contemporary romances because it's usually more psychological and internal (which means I have to think harder)."

Personality

Lisa said about herself that for most of her teenage years she was a very shy, slightly plump bookworm with braces and big glasses. She did like to sing and participate in school plays.

Interests

• music, reading, cooking

Connections

By 1998 Lisa had started a family-getting married and receiving the award of having the most wonderful little boy in the world. Today she lives in Texas with her husband, Gregory, and their two children, Griffin and Lindsay.

husband:

Greg Kleypas

Son:

Griffin Kleypas

born 1998

Daughter:

Lindsay Kleypas

colleague:

Mel Berger

Friend:

Christina Dodd

She is the best-selling American author of suspense and romance novels. She is a recipient of the RITA Award.

colleague:

Carrie Feron

She is a senior vice president and executive editor at William Morrow and Avon Books, two imprints of HarperCollins Publishers.

References

• Author's Lisa Kleypas Official Website