Susan Spencer Paul, who also writes as Mary Spencer, lives in the foothills of Monrovia, California with her husband and their three daughters. Having decided in high school to pursue writing as a career, Susan didn't actually have the chance to put pen to paper until the birth of her first child, when becoming a "stay-at-home" mom proved to be less challenging than she'd expected.

Having discovered that she could only clean the house so many times each day, and finding that she was becoming fearfully addicted to the Home Shopping Network, Susan decided she'd better dust off the computer and make some use of the years she'd spent studying writing and literature in college.

Writing shortly became not only a pleasurable escape from tedium, but a thriving and immensely enjoyable challenge.

Three years, two finished manuscripts, and another baby later, Susan sold her first effort, a medieval novel titled The Vow, to HarperPaperbacks.

Several additional medieval novels followed this, including the first three of the six-part Bride series from Harlequin Historicals.

But other eras proved to be equally enticing, and Susan also dabbled in the Victorian and Regency periods, producing novels set in both. She is the author of 14 historical romance novels, including seven Harlequin Historicals. One of these, Beguiled, was awarded Affaire de Coeur Magazine's 1999 Choicis des Critiques Award for Best Regency.