The final installment of Romance, Writing, & Relationships honors the queen of romance novels herself, Nora Roberts. The name Nora Roberts is one of many pseudonyms used by Eleanor Marie Robertson, who believes that all romance writers must use pen names. She has used this to her advantage by taking multiple pen names to branch out her writing into other genres on various continents. Over her thirty-year writing career, Roberts has written over 225 romance novels. In 2011, she was the first author to be inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame. With three decades of books behind her, Roberts continues to write full-speed ahead with no end in sight. Let’s take a look at the life and love of our final author in our Romance, Writing, & Relationships series.
Roberts always considered herself a storyteller. She grew up in a family of readers and admits to telling extravagant stories (i.e. lies) that were convincing and believable. When she transferred to a public high school from a Catholic school, she met her first husband, Ronald Aufdem Brinke. Much like a forbidden romance a romance novel, their partnership was forbidden by her parents. But in a classic act of rebellion, the two married as soon as Roberts graduated high school.
Ronald Aufdem Brinke
The couple settled in Boonsboro, Maryland—a town that would become a pivotal aspect of Roberts’s life. While Ronald worked for his parents and then Roberts’s parents, the future author stayed home to raise two children. She often refers to this period as her “Earth Mother” years where she found herself crafting various items. However, during a February snowstorm in 1979, she found herself housebound with her children. With nothing else to do, Roberts wrote down her ideas for various stories and promptly finished six manuscripts. After two years, her first book, Irish Thoroughbred, was picked up by the newly established Silouhette books in 1981. Unfortunately, fifteen years into their marriage and two years into Roberts’s newly minted writing career, the pair would divorce.
Bruce Wilder
A couple of years after her divorce, Roberts would hire a Mr. Bruce Wilder to build her bookshelf. Fittingly, Wilder owns Turn the Pages Books, a bookstore in Boonsboro. The two married the same year they met and have been together ever since. During their marriage, Roberts’s work would be plagiarized several times over, most recently being an incident in 2019 with Brazilian author, Cristiane Serruya. However, together, the couple has had some beautiful moments over their thirty-six-year marriage. Most notably, they expanded their Maryland home, traveled the world, and completely revamped Boonsboro into a Nora Roberts fan’s paradise. What was once a quiet town has become a one-stop shop similar to Forks, Washington, and Covington, Georgia. Fans from all over visit Wilder’s bookstore and cafe and can shop fan memorabilia and character jewelry based on Roberts’s novels.
As for where the author gets her ideas? Well, that’s a secret she will never tell. In an article with The Guardian, she jokes that alcohol is what keeps her going. She says she writes one novel at a time, always writing for at least eight hours, and sometimes even writes on vacation. This is the method to her successfully churning out several books in a year. Roberts’s most recent novel, Legacy: A Novel, was just released in May of this year. In addition, mega fans can check out the rest of the novelist’s 2021 release schedule here.
This completes Bookstr’s Romance, Writers, & Relationships series! If you need to catch up on our previous authors, click here to read about Nicholas Sparks, here to read about Margaret Mitchell, and here to read about Jane Austen. Let us know if you enjoyed this series and remember to keep an eye out for our next saga of articles. We hope you enjoyed our take on Romance Awareness Month and that wherever you are in life, love finds you. Until next time!
FEATURED IMAGE VIA THE GUARDIAN