Linda Howard

Linda S. was born August 3, 1950 in Gadsden, Alabama, U.S.A.. She cut her teeth on Margaret Mitchell, Robert Ruark, "and anything else that fell into my hands," she says. Whether she is reading them or writing them, books have long played a profound role in Linda's life. Linda wrote her first book when she was 10 years old. "Needless to say, it was unpublishable," she says. "It didn't even have a title. I didn't name them back then." In the ensuing 21 years of writing for her own pleasure, following junior college Linda worked in the transportation industry, where she met Gary F. Howington, her husband. "In the company I worked for, my title was secretary to the terminal manager, but I actually did very little secretarial work," she says. "I worked in every phase of the transportation business, but my main duties were payroll, insurance, and the efficiency and production reports." Writing production reports, however, soon grew tiresome for Linda. As she continued to write fiction, concentrating on romantic stories. "I get bored with politics and murder and mayhem," she says. She eventually worked up the courage to submit a manuscript for publication. "It made me sick literally, physically ill. It was like putting your naked baby into the mailbox. And I lost 20 pounds waiting to hear from them. I couldn't eat." Linda needn't have worried Silhouette Books bought her manuscript,…