Mary-Jo Wormell, its thrice-married founder and a former Conservative Partyparliamentary candidate, spent 20 years as a Mills & Boon author, writingmore than 40 titles under the nom de plume Mary Lyons. Mary-Jo along withtwo other prolific Mills & Boon authors launched Heartline Publishing on14th February 2001. The publishing house was meant to fill the gap betweenMills & Boon and Mainstream fiction.