Anne enquired after an author whose novels she enjoyed a great deal:
Knight in a White Stetson, The Virgin Beauty, and Renegade with a Badge were written by one Claire King for the Intimate Moments line. They’re awesome, and as nearly as I can tell, she’s dropped off the face of the earth. I’d love to know if she’s writing under another name, or joined a nunnery, or what!
Well, Knight in a White Stetson and Renegade with a Badge are both available on Kindle, with “White Stetson” as part of Harlequin’s new “Treasury” collection – so these must be some pretty freaking awesome books. One Amazon review from 1999 even references the reviewer being a neighbor of King’s in Idaho, though I don’t recommend we try to track her down because that would be really creepy.
There is another author named Claire King who writes in the UK, but I don’t think it’s the same one. According to this interview from The Romance Reader, King the romance author does, or did, live on a working cattle ranch, so it sounds even from this basic Google-fu that I’m going to have to read these books. But alas, I haven’t found anything else. Anyone have any ideas if Ms. King is still writing, perhaps under a new name?
And Ms. King, if you’re reading this, you have fans, even 10+ years after your book was released. Well done!
No idea where the author is, but I remember the books! I found Knight in a White Stetson at my library when I was just getting into romance novels. I’m pretty sure I enjoyed it quite a bit. May look into the Kindle version for nostalgia purposes.
Okay…here’s my theory. Claire King was Pioneer Woman’s pseudonym and now she’s too busy to write romances because she’s writing cookbooks and homeschooling kids and whatnot. That’s completely unsubstantiated…so spread it like wildfire. 😉
Thanks for this, I went out and read the two King books available for Kindle, and I’m convinced she’s yet another of those ‘write a romance novel a year to pay for grad school’ authors. Both novels had major characters with serious scientific doctorates (chemical engineer[not chemist], oceanographer [not marine biologist]). Linda Miles is another who only wrote four wonderful, clever novels—and the description of academia in Husband to Be is definitely written from the inside! Though if anyone knows whatever happened to Linda Miles I’d be so happy.