Nora Roberts

Nora Roberts (aka Nora Roberts) (born Eleanor Marie Robertson on October 10, 1950) is an American author of more than 225 romance novels. She writes as J. D. Robb for the in Death series and has also written under the pseudonyms Jill March and for publications in the U.K. as Sarah Hardesty.

Nora Roberts was the first author to be inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame. As of 2011, her novels had spent a combined 861 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list, including 176 weeks in the number-one spot.

Roberts was born on October 10, 1950 in Silver Spring, Maryland, the youngest of five children. Both of her parents have Irish ancestors, and she has described herself as "an Irishwoman through and through". Her family were avid readers, so books were always important in her life. Although she had always made up stories in her head, Roberts did not write as a child, other than essays for school. She does claim to have "told lies. Really good ones—some of which my mother still believes." She attended a Catholic school and credits the nuns with instilling in her a sense of discipline. During her second year in high school, Roberts transferred to a local public school, Montgomery Blair High School, where she met her first husband, Ronald Aufdem-Brinke. They married, against her parents' wishes, in 1968, as soon as she had graduated from high school.

The newly married couple settled in Boonsboro, Maryland. Roberts' husband worked at his father's sheet-metal business before joining her parents in their lighting company. She gave birth to two sons, Dan and Jason. Roberts became a homemaker and would later refer to this time period as her "Earth Mother" years. Roberts spent much of her time doing crafts, including ceramics and sewing her children's clothes.
Their marriage ended in divorce in 1983.

Roberts met her second husband, Bruce Wilder, a carpenter, when she hired him to build bookshelves in July 1985. Her husband owns and operates a bookstore in Boonsboro, Maryland called Turn the Page Books. He also works as an adult content photographer and videographer.

The Wilders also owned the nearby historic Boone Hotel, which was undergoing renovations when it was destroyed by a fire in February 2008. It opened as the Inn BoonsBoro in 2009; the suites were inspired by and named for literary romantic couples with happy endings.

Roberts once stated: "You're going to be unemployed if you really think you just have to sit around and wait for the muse to land on your shoulder." She concentrates on one novel at a time, writing eight hours a day, every day, even while on vacation. Rather than begin with an outline or plot summary, Roberts instead envisions a key incident, character, or setting. She then writes a short first draft that has the basic elements of a story. After finishing the first draft, Roberts goes back to the beginning of the novel. The second draft usually sees the addition of details, the "texture and color" of the work, as well as a more in-depth study of the characters. She then does a final pass to polish the novel before sending it to her agent, Amy Berkower.

She often writes trilogies, finishing the three books in a row so that she can remain with the same characters. When possible, she does the same with the in Death books, writing three in a row before returning to contemporary romances. Her trilogies are all released in paperback, as Roberts believes the wait for hardcover editions is too long for the reader.