Violet Winspear


Violet Winspear was a British writer of 70 romance novels in Mills & Boon from 1961 to 1987.
In 1973, she became a launch author for the new Mills & Boon-Harlequin Presents line of category romance novels. Presents line books were more sexually explicit than the previous line, Romance, under which Winspear had been published. She was chosen to be a launch author because she, along with Anne Mather and Anne Hampson were the most popular and prolific British authors of Mills and Boon.
In 1970 Winspear commented that she wrote her leading males as if they were 'capable of rape'. This comment caused uproar and lead to her receiving hate mail.

Biography

Violet Winspear was born on 28 April 1928 in London, England. She worked in a factory since 1942, when in 1961 she sold her first romance novels to Mills & Boon. In 1963, she became a full-time writer. She wrote from her home in the south-east England, an area which she never left, but she researched her far-flung settings at the local library.
She said: "The real aim of romance is to provide escape and entertainment", but when in 1970 she commented: "I get my heroes so that they're lean and hard muscled and mocking and sardonic and tough and tigerish and single, of course. Oh and they've got to be rich and then I make it that they're only cynical and smooth on the surface. But underneath they're well, you know, sort of lost and lonely. In need of love but, when roused, capable of breathtaking passion and potency. Most of my heroes, well all of them really, are like that. They frighten but fascinate. They must be the sort of men who are capable of rape: men it's dangerous to be alone in the room with." The comment, that they were 'capable of rape' caused uproar and lead to her receiving hate mail.
Violet Winspear died at January 1989 after a long battle with cancer.

Single Novels

  1. The Honey Is Bitter
  2. Dragon Bay
  3. The Pagan Island

    Romanos Saga

  4. Tawny Sands
  5. No Man of Her Own

    Mavrakis Saga

  6. The Child of Judas
  7. Love is the honey

    Anthologies

In 1983, Takarazuka Snow Troupe staged Blue Jasmine.