Penny Jordan

Penny Jordan (Penelope Halsall, née Jones, 1946-2011) was an English romance novelist who wrote about 170 novels for Mills & Boon and Harlequin, and later wartime sagas as Annie Groves. She was born in Preston, Lancashire, on 24 November 1946 and died in Cheshire on 31 December 2011.

Her first book, Duchess in Disguise, appeared in March 1979 under the name Caroline Courtney, and her first Mills & Boon novel, Falcon's Prey, followed in October 1981 under the Penny Jordan name. She went on to write 167 novels for Mills & Boon and Harlequin, with sales of almost 70 million copies, and also wrote as Melinda Wright and Lydia Hitchcock. From 2003 she wrote family sagas, many set in the Second World War, as Annie Groves, taking her mother's maiden name; series include the Campion family, Article Row and Empire Street books. She lived in Nantwich, Cheshire.

For collectors

Her Mills & Boon debut, Falcon's Prey (October 1981), and her other early Mills & Boon titles of the early 1980s are the first printings sought by readers building a run, along with the earlier Caroline Courtney Regencies and the first Annie Groves saga of 2003.