Penny Jordan was a British best-selling and prolific English novelist. During her career, Jordan has written over 200 romance novels.
Background
Penelope Jones was born on 24 November 1946, in Preston, Lancashire, the eldest of three children born to Anthony Winn Jones and Margaret (Groves) Louise. She had a brother, Anthony, and a sister, Prudence. A keen reader from childhood, her story-telling career began at the age of eight when she began telling original bedtime stories to her younger sister.
Education
Jones left grammar school in Rochdale with O-Levels in English Language, English Literature and Geography.
Career
Jordan 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 three air-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 more historical romance novels, she adopted her mother's maiden name to become Annie Groves.
Jane Austen, Dorothy Dunnett, Catherine Cookson, Georgette Heyer, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare's plays and poetry and the Bible
Connections
Jones married Steve Halsall, an accountant, who died of cancer, predeceasing his wife. They did not have children, but she had a dozen of assorted godchildren, nieces and nephews.