Brown, Sandra 1948-

(Laura Jordan, Rachel Ryan, Erin St. Claire)

PERSONAL:

Born March 12, 1948, in Waco, TX; daughter of Jimmie (a journalist) and Martha (a counselor) Cox; married Michael Brown (a television producer and former television anchor), August 17, 1968; children: Rachel, Ryan. Education: Attended Texas Christian University, Oklahoma State University, and University of Texas at Arlington. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, movies, travel, and hosting get-togethers.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Arlington, TX. Agent—Maria Carvainis Agency, 1270 Avenue of the Americas, Ste. 2320, New York, NY 10020. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer. Merle Norman Cosmetics Studios, Tyler, TX, manager, 1971-73; KLTV-TV, Tyler, TX, weather reporter, 1972-75; WFAA-TV, Dallas, TX, weather reporter, 1976-79; Dallas Apparel Mart, Dallas, TX, model, 1976-87.

MEMBER:

Author's Guild, Mystery Writers of America, International Association of Crime Writers, Novelists, Inc., and Literacy Partners, RWA, International Thriller Writers.

AWARDS, HONORS:

American Business Women's Association's Distinguished Circle of Success; B'nai B'rith's Distinguished Literary Achievement Award; A.C. Greene Award; Romance Writers of America's Lifetime Achievement Award; Texas Cultural Trust.

WRITINGS:

ROMANCE NOVELS

(Under pseudonym Laura Jordan) Hidden Fires, Richard Gallen (New York, NY), 1982, published under name Sandra Brown, Warner (New York, NY), 1997.

(Under pseudonym Laura Jordan) The Silken Web, Richard Gallen (New York, NY), 1982, published under name Sandra Brown, Warner (New York, NY), 1992.

Breakfast in Bed, Bantam (New York, NY), 1983, Wheeler (Rockland, MA), 1996.

Heaven's Price, Bantam (New York, NY), 1983.

Relentless Desire, Berkley-Jove (New York, NY), 1983.

Tempest in Eden, Berkley-Jove (New York, NY), 1983.

Temptation's Kiss, Berkley-Jove (New York, NY), 1983, Wheeler (Rockland, MA), 1998.

Tomorrow's Promise, Harlequin (Tarrytown, NY), 1983.

In a Class by Itself, Bantam (New York, NY), 1984, Random House (New York, NY), 1999.

Send No Flowers, Bantam (New York, NY), 1984, Wheeler (Rockland, MA), 1999.

Sunset Embrace, Bantam (New York, NY), 1984.

Riley in the Morning, Bantam (New York, NY), 1985, reprinted, 2001.

Thursday's Child, Bantam (New York, NY), 1985, reprinted, 2002.

Another Dawn, Bantam (New York, NY), 1985.

22 Indigo Place, Bantam (New York, NY), 1986.

The Rana Look, Bantam (New York, NY), 1986.

Demon Rumm, Bantam (New York, NY), 1987, reprinted, 2005.

Fanta C, Bantam (New York, NY), 1987.

Sunny Chandler's Return, Bantam (New York, NY), 1987, reprinted, 2004.

Adam's Fall, Bantam (New York, NY), 1988, Wheeler (Rockland, MA), 1994.

Hawk O'Toole's Hostage, Bantam (New York, NY), 1988, Wheeler (Rockland, MA), 1997.

Slow Heat in Heaven (also see below), Warner (New York, NY), 1988.

Tidings of Great Joy, Bantam (New York, NY), 1988.

Long Time Coming, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1989, reprinted, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Temperatures Rising, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1989, reprinted, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Best Kept Secrets (also see below), Warner (New York, NY), 1989, reprinted, 2003.

A Whole New Light, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1989.

Breath of Scandal, Warner (New York, NY), 1991.

Another Dawn, Warner (New York, NY), 1991.

Mirror Image (also see below), Severn, 1991.

French Silk, Warner (New York, NY), 1992.

A Secret Splendor, Harlequin (Tarrytown, NY), 1992.

Shadows of Yesterday, also published as Relentless Desire, Warner (New York, NY), 1992.

Three Complete Novels (contains Mirror Image, Best Kept Secrets, and Slow Heat in Heaven), Wings Books (New York, NY), 1992.

Where There's Smoke, Warner (New York, NY), 1993.

Charade, Warner (New York, NY), 1994.

The Witness, Warner (New York, NY), 1995.

Exclusive, Warner (New York, NY), 1996.

Fat Tuesday, Warner (New York, NY), 1997.

Unspeakable, Warner (New York, NY), 1998.

The Alibi, Random House (New York, NY), 1999.

Standoff, Warner (New York, NY), 2000.

The Switch, Warner (New York, NY), 2000.

Envy, Warner (New York, NY), 2001.

The Crush, Warner (New York, NY), 2002.

The Rana Look, Bantam Doubleday Dell (New York, NY), 2002.

Hello, Darkness, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2003.

White Hot, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2004.

Chill Factor, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2005.

Ricochet, Simon & Schuster. (New York, NY), 2006.

Three Complete Novels in One Volume (includes Heaven's Price, Breakfast in Bed, and Send No Flowers,), Wings Books (New York, NY), 2007.

"TEXAS!" SERIES

Texas! Lucky, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1990.

Texas! Chase, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1990.

Texas! Sage, Bantam (New York, NY), 1992.

Texas! Trilogy (contains Texas! Lucky, Texas! Sage, and Texas! Chase), 1992.

NOVELS; UNDER PSEUDONYM RACHEL RYAN

Love beyond Reason, Dell (New York, NY), 1981, published under name Sandra Brown, Thorndike (Thorndike, ME), 1996.

Love's Encore, Dell (New York, NY), 1981, published under name Sandra Brown, Bantam (New York, NY), 1997.

Eloquent Silence, Dell (New York, NY), 1982, published under name Sandra Brown, Thorndike (Thorndike, ME), 1996.

A Treasure Worth Seeking, Dell (New York, NY), 1982, published under name Sandra Brown, Warner (New York, NY), 1997.

Prime Time, Dell (New York, NY), 1983, published under name Sandra Brown, Thorndike (Thorndike, ME), 1996.

NOVELS; UNDER PSEUDONYM ERIN ST. CLAIRE

Not Even for Love, Harlequin (Tarrytown, NY), 1982, reprinted, Warner Books (New York, NY), 2003.

A Kiss Remembered, Harlequin (Tarrytown, NY), 1983.

A Secret Splendor, Harlequin (Tarrytown, NY), 1983.

Seduction by Design, Harlequin (Tarrytown, NY), 1983, published under name Sandra Brown, Warner (New York, NY), 2001.

Bittersweet Rain, Harlequin (Tarrytown, NY), 1984.

Words of Silk, Harlequin (Tarrytown, NY), 1984, reprinted, Warner Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Led Astray, Harlequin (Tarrytown, NY), 1985.

Sweet Anger, Harlequin (Tarrytown, NY), 1985.

Tiger Prince, Harlequin (Tarrytown, NY), 1985.

Above and Beyond, Harlequin (Tarrytown, NY), 1986.

Honor Bound, Harlequin (Tarrytown, NY), 1986.

The Devil's Own, Harlequin (Tarrytown, NY), 1987.

Two Alone, Harlequin (Tarrytown, NY), 1987.

Thrill of Victory, Harlequin (Tarrytown, NY), 1989.

Books have been translated into thirty languages.

ADAPTATIONS:

A television movie based on French Silk was produced in the 1990s, starring Susan Lucci; books have been adapted as sound recordings, including The Switch and A Treasure Worth Seeking, Brilliance Audio (Grand Haven, MI), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS:

Sandra Brown has written more than sixty novels in a span of some twenty-five years. Although her early work falls strictly into the genre of the romance novel, her books have steadily evolved in length and complexity, successfully combining traditional romance elements with several other genres, including mystery, the political thriller, and crime fiction. In the process, her readership has grown dramatically. With more than fifty million copies of her novels in print and more than four dozen appearances on the New York Times bestseller list, Brown has emerged as one of the most successful commercial novelists of her generation. From her modest beginnings working as a pseudonymous writer of Harlequin romances, she is today one of the best-paid authors in America, commanding as much as four million dollars per title.

Brown was raised in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up reading detective novels and dreaming of a career as a dancer. She married in 1968 and spent the early years of the 1970s working in television commercials and serving as a part-time television weather forecaster. When she was laid off from her weather job in 1979, she began reading and writing romance novels. A visit to a romance writers' conference helped her to understand how to enter the business, and by 1981 she was selling her work. Her first two novels, Love's Encore and Love Beyond Reason, were accepted within thirteen days of one another. Brown told Twbookmark.com: "It was as though all the lights came on, and I realized what I was supposed to do with my life. I was writing like a fiend." Over the next decade she penned an average of six books per year, gradually dropping the pseudonyms in favor of using her own name. Her output eventually diminished as her books became more ambitious in scope and substance.

A typical Brown bestseller features a large cast of characters, a plot rife with secrets and intrigues (often family-based) that keep the reader guessing, a heroine in danger, and a liberal helping of what a writer in Kirkus Reviews referred to as "raunchy sex scenes." Brown's heroines are most often career women who are seeking not only romance but also fame and fortune. Cat Delany, the protagonist of Charade, is a soap-opera star who must undergo a heart transplant. She is subsequently stalked by a mysterious serial killer seeking revenge on the person who has received his dead lover's heart. The killer may even be her new romantic interest, crime novelist Alex Pierce.

Kendall Deaton, the protagonist in The Witness, is an ambitious public defender who becomes embroiled in the prejudices of a small Southern town. A fatal car accident, amnesia, adultery, and a terrible secret lead Kendall to a finale involving the F.B.I. and surprising revelations about the true identities of the novel's central characters. In Exclusive, set in Washington, DC, the president's infant son has apparently died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Reporter Barrie Travis is granted an exclusive interview with the first lady that leads her to believe the baby's death may have actually been a murder. In the course of investigating the case, she becomes romantically involved with a former presidential advisor who may have also been the first lady's former lover. Travis uncovers information about the first family that gravely contradicts its public image. Unspeakable pits a secretive Texas ranch hand and a deaf widow against a rapist-murderer who breaks out of prison with revenge on his mind. As the pace quickens, it becomes clear that the ranch hand, Jack Sawyer, knows a great deal more about his employers—and the killer—than he lets on.

Most reviewers have agreed that the strength of Brown's work lies in her storytelling ability. Reviewing The Witness for Booklist, Mary Frances Wilkens wrote of Brown: "Though not an elegant writer, this prolific author writes a true page-turner that is recommended for fans of graphic crime fiction." A reviewer in Publishers Weekly echoed this view, describing Exclusive as a "nimbly plotted political thriller" that "despite merely serviceable prose," provides an "intricate weave of false leads, sinister motives and long-hidden truths [that] is engrossing." Susan Clifford, reviewing Unspeakable in the Library Journal, commended Brown for weaving "a tight web that catches and holds the reader from first page to last." Booklist correspondent Donna Seaman noted that, "in her steamy, relentless thrillers … Brown writes with vehement vulgarity and extravagant bloodthirstiness."

A Twentieth-Century Romance and Historical Writers contributor attributed much of Brown's success to the fact "that she invites her readers into a fantasy world of passion, intrigue, and danger." The Texas-born Brown has set much of her fiction in the American South, and the contributor believed that her "steamy settings with a touch of decadence … contribute greatly to a brooding, oppressive atmosphere … [which] in turn, increases the underlying menace and tension surrounding the characters." The contributor also credited Brown with being one of the few writers to successfully break the traditional romance formula by writing books that do not have happy endings.

The author has continued to churn out widely read multiple-genre novels, such as Standoff, about a female television reporter who gets taken hostage along with the handsome Doc by teenagers holding up a convenience store. Vanessa Bush, writing in Booklist, commented that the novel "will intrigue." According to a Publishers Weekly contributor, in her novel Envy, Brown "craft[s] a novel within a novel within a novel." When a book editor, Mans Matherly-Reed, starts reading a novel from a slush pile, she becomes entranced by the highly charged, sexual writing. Throughout the book, Brown alternates between the novel sent in by a mysterious stranger, the story about a purloined novel within the stranger's novel, and the tale of Mans herself and her sociopath husband. The Publishers Weekly contributor noted that the author "stages one dramatic scene after another."

In her thriller titled The Crush, Brown presents Dr. Rennie Newton, who finds a gangster innocent while serving on a jury only to have the contract killer, Ricky Lozada, start sending her flowers and calling her. When one of Rennie's colleagues winds up murdered, the doctor becomes a suspect as Detective Wick Threadgill investigates and soon finds himself falling for the aloof Rennie. The jealous Ricky learns of Wick's intentions and makes plans to do away with him. Booklist contributor Kristine Huntley wrote: "This novel delivers a menacing villain and page-turning suspense." A Kirkus Reviews contributor called The Crush a "pretty good suspenser."

Chill Factor focuses on Lily Martin, a magazine publisher whose ex-husband, Dutch Burton, is police chief of Cleary, North Carolina. Lily, who has refused to make another go of it with Dutch, accidentally hits a man with her car and takes him back to a mountain cabin to escape from a storm. Before long, she finds herself attracted to Ben Tierney, even though she begins to suspect that he is a serial killer being searched for by Butch and the FBI. A Publishers Weekly contributor wrote: "Lust, jealousy and murder suffuse Brown's crisp thriller." Kristine Huntley, writing in Booklist, noted: "The suspense builds as Brown's novel chugs toward a gripping, surprising conclusion."

In Hello, Darkness, Brown borrows from the Clint Eastwood movie Play Misty for Me to write of a female disc jockey named Paris Gibson who encounters a man named Valentino. It turns out that Valentino blames Paris's on-air advice for his failure in love. Valentino calls in to Paris's radio show and announces that he already has his girlfriend held hostage, has raped her, and is going to kill her in three days before turning his vengeance on Paris. Suspecting that this is more than just a fantasy caller, Paris turns to her ex-boyfriend, a police psychologist, for help. Writing in Booklist, Kristine Huntley noted that the novel "is full of thrills and chills that will keep readers turning the pages."

White Hot revolves around Sayre Lynch, who left Destiny, Louisiana, and changed her name to get away from her father, the corrupt Huff Hoyle, who owns a successful iron foundry. Sarah returns when her younger brother is found dead from a shotgun blast, which authorities initially believe to be a suicide. However, the more Sarah and a young detective learn, the more her brother's death begins to look like murder. As Sayre tries to sort everything out, including whether or not her older brother is actually the murderer, she begins to find herself attracted to her father's pesky right-hand man, Beck Merchant. A Publishers Weekly contributor noted: "White-hot labor disputes, family conflict, murder and romance are ablaze" in Brown's novel. Kristine Huntley, writing in Booklist, commented that the novel "sizzles, thanks mainly to a compelling cast of characters."

The author features the case of a judge's wife who kills an intruder whom she may have known, in the novel Richochet. Called to the house to investigate, Detective Duncan Hatcher becomes suspicious when he sees the intruder was killed with one pinpoint shot. The judge's wife, Elsie, later claims that the judge wants her dead and Duncan finds himself attracted to her despite his growing suspicions about her truthfulness and innocence. Writing in Kirkus Reviews, a contributor noted that the novel contains "enough twists to keep fans guessing." "Gripping and absorbing, this is Brown's best thriller in years," wrote Kristine Huntley in Booklist. A Publishers Weekly contributor noted: "Tight plotting, a hot love story with some nice twists and a credible ending help make this a standout thriller."

In addition to producing work under her own name, Brown has published many volumes under the pseudonyms Laura Jordan, Rachel Ryan, and Erin St. Claire. She once commented in CA: "I can't fathom an occupation from which I could derive so much satisfaction as that of writing. It's simply something I must do. Being paid to do it is icing on the cake."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Southern Writers, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999.

Twentieth-Century Romance and Historical Writers, edited by Aruna Vasudevan, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1994.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 1, 1995, Mary Frances Wilkens, review of The Witness, p. 1530; May 15, 1996, Mary Frances Wilkens, review of Exclusive, pp. 1546-1547; May 1, 1998, Donna Seaman, review of Unspeakable, p. 1477; March 15, 2000, Vanessa Bush, review of Standoff, p. 1292; August, 2000, Brad Hooper, review of The Switch, p. 2072; September 1, 2002, Kristine Huntley, review of The Crush, p. 4; September 1, 2003, Kristine Huntley, review of Hello, Darkness, p. 5; July, 2004, Kristine Huntley, review of White Hot, p. 1796; August, 2005, Kristine Huntley, review of Chill Factor, p. 1997; July 1, 2006, Kristine Huntley, review or Ricochet, p. 6.

Entertainment Weekly, September 10, 2004, review of White Hot, p. 171; September 9, 2005, review of Chill Factor, p. 149; August 18, 2006, Lynette Rice, review of Ricochet, p. 142.

Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 1994, review of Charade, p. 318; April 15, 1995, review of The Witness, p. 486; August 15, 2002, review of The Crush, p. 1157; July 1, 2004, review of White Hot, p. 589; May 15, 2006, review of Ricochet, p. 479.

Library Journal, May 15, 1998, Susan Clifford, review of Unspeakable, p. 112; September 15, 2001, Catherine Swenson, review of The Switch, p. 129; August 1, 2003, review of Hello, Darkness, p. 993; October 15, 2003, Samantha J. Gust, review of Hello, Darkness, p. 95; July, 2004, Samantha J. Gust, review of White Hot, p. 67; August 1, 2005, Nanette Wargo Donohue, review of Chill Factor, p. 65.

People, September 21, 1998, Alec Foege, "Texas Tornado," p. 81.

Publishers Weekly, March 21, 1994, review of Charade, p. 52; May 6, 1996, review of Exclusive, pp. 67-68; April 24, 2000, review of Standoff, p. 61; July 31, 2000, review of The Switch, p. 73; August 7, 2000, review of Standoff, p. 40; July 16, 2001, review of Envy, p. 157; September 10, 2001, Daisy Maryles, "Envying Brown," p. 19; September 2, 2002, review of The Crush, p. 54; June 7, 2004, review of White Hot, p. 29; June 20, 2005, review of Chill Factor, p. 55; June 19, 2006, review of Ricochet, p. 40; October 2, 2006, review of Ricochet, p. 58.

State (Columbia, SC), September 27, 2006, review of Ricochet.

ONLINE

Bookreporter.com,http://www.bookreporter.com/ (December 2, 2006), "Author Talk," interviews with author dating back to 1997; Maggie Harding, reviews of Ricochet, Chill Factor, and White Hot; Joe Hartlaub, review of Hello, Darkness; Robert O'Hara, review of The Crush; Debbie Ann Weiner, reviews of The Switch, Envy, and Standoff; Sofrina Hinton, review of The Alibi; Susanne Trani, review of Unspeakable.

Sandra Brown Home Page,http://www.sandrabrown.net (December 2, 2006).

Twbookmark, http://www.twbookmark.com/ (May 19, 2001), "Sandra Brown."