[close] The Official, Boring Biography
Lauren Royal decided to become a writer in the third grade, after winning a “Why My Mother is the Greatest” essay contest and seeing her entry printed in a major newspaper. However, after college she spent fourteen years as the CEO of her own jewelry store chain before remembering her childhood dream and writing her first book. Since then, Lauren's ten published books have won awards including the Golden Quill for Best Historical Romance, the Book Buyers Best Award, the Beacon Award, the Booksellers' Best Award, and Booklist's Top 10 Romance of the Year.

Lauren lives in Southern California with her husband, three children, and one constantly shedding cat. She still thinks her mother is the greatest.

The Longer, Rambling Biography
When Lauren Royal was in elementary school, she wanted to be Marcia Brady. Marcia was cool, popular, and had straight blond hair. Lauren was an intellectual nerd and had curly brown hair. She thinks the ceramic flat-iron is the world's greatest invention, and she's very happy those adolescent days are behind her.

In the third grade, Lauren won a “Why My Mother Is The Greatest” essay contest, and her winning essay was published in a major newspaper. Seeing her words in print was the thrill of her young life, and she immediately decided to become a writer when she grew up. She became interested in English history at the age of 14, when she sneaked a valuable first-edition copy of Forever Amber out of her great-uncle's library and read it over and over (even though she hated the terrible, unhappily-ever-after ending) until it was ruined. While combing used book stores for a replacement copy of this priceless tome (who knew a romance novel could be worth so much money?), she began amassing a collection of reference books and taking copious notes with the intention of someday writing a historical novel of her own.

She attended UC Irvine and UCLA with a major in TV and film production, and then, after being offered her dream job—directing a cable television show—she opened a jewelry store in a mall instead. (Don't bother asking how she came to this decision—she has no logical answer.) She eventually dragged her parents, brother and husband into this business, and the one store grew to five, until she'd eaten enough food-court meals to last a lifetime. During this fourteen-year period she honed her writing skills on 150-page employee manuals, countless scintillating company newsletters, and an occasional political opinion article when she just couldn't keep her mouth shut.

Finally, to her great relief, the stores were sold to a national chain, and she decided it might be nice to “retire” and stay home with her three children. This lasted all of four and a half days before she went stark raving mad and remembered she was supposed to write a book someday. Her first novel, Amethyst, was the result. Ten books later, she now thinks writing books is the dream job of all time, certainly much better than directing television. She will never quite get over the fact that people pay her to sit at home and make stuff up.

Lauren was born in Southern California, and still lives there, and would not live anywhere else unless she were offered a chance to help colonize a new planet. When she's not at home in front of her computer, you can usually find her at a rock concert, or at one of her husband's hockey games, or watching her kids fence, play lacrosse, sing, or dance. The children, by the way, got their athletic abilities from their father, because Lauren has no hand-eye coordination whatsoever and was born without a sports gene. You wouldn't want to hear her sing, either. She is happy that her oldest son attends the University of Kent, because it gives her another excuse to visit England. She likes to think she's into scrapbooking, but she never finds time to actually put anything in her albums.

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