Thompson, Colleen

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Thompson, Colleen
(Gwyneth Atlee, Colleen Easton)

PERSONAL:

Married; husband a firefighter; children: one son. Hobbies and other interests: Hiking, working on computers, reading.

ADDRESSES:

Home—The Woodlands, TX. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, 1999—. Also works with children and works as a public speaker; former teacher.

AWARDS, HONORS:

RITA Award nomination for Best Romantic Suspense novel, Texas Gold Award for Best Mainstream Fiction, and "Perfect Ten" citation, Romance Reviews Today, all for Fatal Error; Top Pick citation, Romantic Times Book Club magazine, for Innocent Deceptions.

WRITINGS:

ROMANCE NOVELS

(As Colleen Easton) Dangerous Attractions, Kensington Publishing (New York, NY), 2003.

Fatal Error, Leisure Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Fade the Heat, Dorchester Publishing (New York, NY), 2005.

The Deadliest Denial, Love Spell (New York, NY), 2006.

Heat Lightning, Love Spell (New York, NY), 2006.

UNDER PSEUDONYM GWYNETH ATLEE; ROMANCE NOVELS

Touched by Fire, Kensington Publishing (New York, NY), 1999.

Canyon Song, Kensington Publishing (New York, NY), 2000.

Night Winds, Kensington Publishing (New York, NY), 2000.

Against the Odds, Kensington Publishing (New York, NY), 2001.

Trust to Chance, Kensington Publishing (New York, NY), 2001.

Innocent Deceptions, Kensington Publishing (New York, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS:

Romance novelist Colleen Thompson has made a specialty of the "romantic thriller," with books that combine intense relationships and elements of the suspense and action genres. Thompson's characters struggle against forces (human or natural) seemingly too strong for them to prevail. Armed only with their own ingenuity and trust in each other, her protagonists work to overcome these obstacles while simultaneously falling in love.

Thompson began her career writing historical romances mostly under the pseudonym Gwyneth Atlee. Her earlier works, such as Touched by Fire, Canyon Song, Against the Odds, and Dangerous Attractions, explore the United States after the end of the Civil War. Touched by Fire, for instance, is set against the backdrop of the 1871 fire that destroyed the town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, resulting in more than one thousand deaths. Against the Odds is partially set on the steamboat Sultana, which exploded on April 27, 1865, killing about 1,700 Union soldiers who were returning home from the Civil War. Dangerous Attractions, which Thompson wrote as Colleen Easton, is set in Florida in the mid-nineteenth century, and features a survivor of a Seminole Indian raid as its protagonist. "Overall," wrote Cathy Sova in a review published on the Romance Reader Web site, "Dangerous Attractions is an enjoyable romance that steps outside the boundaries of traditional settings." The story, concluded Nina Davis in a Booklist review of the novel, "should interest readers looking for historicals beyond European ballrooms."

Thompson's more recent works are set in the present, and are published under her own name. Fatal Error, which was nominated for the prestigious RITA award for best romantic suspense novel, tells the story of Susan Maddox, a high-school teacher deserted by her husband. Susan is on the verge of losing her job due to the actions of her vengeful mother-in-law. She asks for help from her brother-in-law, Luke, a computer genius with his own business. Luke hopes to retrieve information from Susan's husband's hard drive that might exonerate her and he also hopes that she will fall in love with him. "The chemistry that shimmers between Susan and Luke," Kristin Ramsdell declared in her Library Journal review, "is pure passion." "Thompson," Patty Engelmann concluded in Booklist, "has written a first-class work of romantic suspense."

Thompson's other contemporary novels also blend passionate romantic interest between protagonists with high-tension danger. Fade the Heat tells the story of the relationship between a female firefighter and a physician who is angering the Houston community by treating illegal immigrants. As a result of the doctor's actions, his offices are torched by an arsonist and the fire department's commanding officer loses his life in the conflagration. The author, wrote a Publishers Weekly reviewer, "conveys the details of fire fighting and emergency medicine with authenticity and finely crafted prose." Like Fade the Heat, Heat Lightning portrays public servants—a community activist being harassed by a stalker and the policeman assigned to protect her. In The Deadliest Denial, the wife of a San Antonio police officer struggles to come to terms with the idea that her husband has been imprisoned for plotting to kill her. A critic writing for Publishers Weekly noted that the story "will keep most readers engrossed as hero and heroine unravel the many threads of deception."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 15, 2003, Nina Davis, review of Dangerous Attractions, p. 1056; November 15, 2004, Patty Engelmann, review of Fatal Error, p. 570.

Library Journal, November 15, 2004, Kristin Ramsdell, review of Fatal Error, p. 47.

Publishers Weekly, September 26, 2005, review of Fade the Heat, p. 68; March 13, 2006, review of The Deadliest Denial, p. 48; September 11, 2006, review of Heat Lightning, p. 40.