Laura Kinsale

Laura Kinsale spent six years in petroleum geology, driving alone through the night across west Texas to stand over drilling rigs in a hard hat and try to boss men considerably larger than herself, and published her first historical romance, The Hidden Heart, in 1986. Berkley brought out Shadowheart in 2004, and it won the Romance Writers of America RITA Award for long historical romance the following year, her second RITA after The Prince of Midnight. The book returns to the world of For My Lady's Heart. In fourteenth century Italy, Allegreto of the Navona family carries off Elena, princess of Monteverde, and marries her while pressing his claim to what his family lost, with her former betrothed Franco Pietro set against them both. Publishers Weekly noted the deliberately archaic dialogue and the sheer weight of period detail. Kinsale, who has divided her time between Santa Fe and Dallas, later founded Hedgehog Inc. to record her own backlist as audiobooks, several of which took Earphones Awards from AudioFile.