In Memory of Essie Summers

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Essie Summers wrote 55 romance novels, selling more than 19 million copies in 105 countries and published in 25 languages. Her novels focused on romance and family life with touches of adventure and humour and her winning formula earned her the loyalty of millions of readers.

Essie was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, to Edwin and Ethel Summers on July 24, 1912. She died in Taradale, Hawkes Bay on the August 27, 1998, at the age of 86.

Her travels around New Zealand, and later the world, provided Essie with settings and plot ideas and many of her readers have travelled to New Zealand to see for themselves the places she describes. In the tourist season it was a regular occurrence that someone would turn up wanting to meet her and this could put great demands on her time. Nevertheless she loved that her books brought people to her homeland and enjoyed meeting her readers.

Essie usually wrote two books a year - her publisher would have taken three but she felt that both her work and marriage would suffer. She wrote fifty two novels for Mills and Boon until High Country Governess in 1987. Mills and Boon were beginning to look for steamier stories and Essie had long wanted to write down her family’s stories.

Essie believed in romance, but she didn't like mushiness. She used humour to lighten her romances. It was her style to leave her heroines at the bedroom door: her novels are not as steamy as more modern romances and they tend to be longer with more characters than is currently the trend. Her heroines usually have careers of some sort, either by choice or necessity, and the stories often involve adventure.

To read more:

http://rosaromance.splinder.com/post/18183388/ 

Comments

[anahcrow.livejournal.com]

Oh, she sounds like a lady after my own heart (ignore the fact that I write wildly explicit m/m and f/f). That kind of story is the kind I would have loved as a kid -- romance where the woman stood on her own two feet and where there was a world of interesting people. I should see if I can't find anything by her still being put out. Dianne is always saying I should read more romances. Thanks, Elisa!

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

I think you can find something, if not in bookstore, on the second hand market. She was pretty famous 20 years ago, more or less, so there are a lot of her romances around. Elisa