Kate Allan developed plans to be a novelist at the age of seven after reading about the career of prolific children's author Enid Blyton, whose adventure and mystery story books she read avidly. She taught herself to use her mother's typewriter to try and make her stories look like "proper books." Endlessly fascinated by "the past," Kate took a degree in History before starting a commercial career in London.

Patricia M. Ashley, in addition to her Regency, The Other Miss Derwent, has recently written a new Regency, and has six romantic comedies under the name Trisha Ashley, the most recent being Sweet Nothings.

The English author Jane Austen lived from 1775 to 1817. Her six novels are classics of the English language because of their irony, humor, and description of contemporary English country life, and always for their still-applicable themes. In addition to her six novels, there are minor works called Juvenilia. There is a great quantity of information about Ms. Austen at http://pemberley.com/

The Regency Sampler includes the first chapters of an ebook by these authors:

Anne Barbour developed an affection for the Regency period while living in England. She has had ten Recency novels and four novellas published, and was named Best Regency Writer of the year for Lord Glenraven's Return. Her Step in Time was an RWA Rita nominee.

Alissa Baxter was born in South Africa, and attended St Anne's Diocesan College in Hilton, Kwa-Zulu-Natal. She continued her studies at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, attaining a first class Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science and French, before furthering her French studies at the Alliance Francaise in Durban and the Eurocentre in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Gayle Buck doesn't ever want to stop writing. "I decided when I was in the fifth grade that I wanted to write stores that would make people laugh and cry. I haven't even scratched the surface yet," she admits.

Back in 1991, Marilyn Clay was a successful commercial artist living in Dallas, Texas, and in her spare time, an aspiring Regency romance writer. Since then, she has sold 6 Regency romance novels to Kensington Books, and was invited to contribute essays to an Encyclopedia of Romanticism, published by Garland and released in 1992. Marilyn also co-wrote, co-produced and appeared in The Romance Writer's Video, a 90 minute videotape which gives aspiring writers a wealth of vital information useful to them on their road to publication.

Mary Chase Comstock is the author of several Regency romances and ascribes her affinity for that time period to reincarnation (although she does not believe she was welcome at Almack's in that life). As Mary Chase, she is an educational technology consultant and has written numerous articles and books on curriculum integration, visual learning and literacy. She holds a PhD in Literacy and Schooling from the University of New Hampshire, but only mentions it eight or ten times during a casual conversation. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her Scottish Terrier, Irish Wolfhound and Brazilian husband

Carola Dunn is the author of more than 30 Regency romances, as well as 16 mysteries (the Daisy Dalrymple mystery series is set in England in the 1920s). Ms. Dunn was born and grew up in England, where she got a B.A. in Russian and French from Manchester University. She travelled as far as Fiji before returning to settle in California. After 40 years in the US, she says she still sounds as if she arrived a month ago.

Roberta Leah Gellis was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1927. Her love of science and literature has greatly affected her life, from her Hunter College days, when she majored in chemistry and English literature, to receiving her M.S. in biochemistry at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. She has also worked as a technical editor for McGraw-Hill Book Company, as a research chemist and as a teaching assistant at N.Y.U. (where she obtained an M.S. in Medieval Literature and completed work for a Ph.D.).

Amanda Grange was born in Yorkshire, England. She spent her teenage years reading Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer whilst also finding time to study music at Nottingham University. She has had sixteen novels published, including five Jane Austen retellings. Woman magazine said of Mr Darcy's Diary, "lots of fun, this is the tale behind the alpha male"; The Historical Novels Review made Captain Wentworth's Diary an Editor's Choice, remarking, "Amanda Grange has hit upon a winning formula," and Austenprose said of Colonel Brandon's Diary, "Amanda Grange has actually succeeded in improving upon Austen’s character Colonel Brandon; – at least for me!" You can visit her website at www.amandagrange.com. Amanda Grange lives in Cheshire, England.

Melinda Hammond was born in the West Country and now lives in Yorkshire, on the edge of the Pennines with her husband and family.

Sandra Heath was born in Wales and now lives in England with her husband and first love, Robin, to whom she has been married for over forty years. They have one daughter and two grandchildren they see every day. Sandra has produced over sixty Regencies, and continues to write them. She has a huge file of plots and storylines that still need to be aired. It’s a case of trying to find time to write them all. .

Emily Hendrickson lives in Reno, Nevada, with her husband, a retired airline pilot. Of all the many places she has traveled around the world, England is her favorite, and the most natural choice as the setting for her novels. In addition to her more than three dozen Regency romances and two Christmas novellas, she has written a Regency reference book. She is the recipient of the Colorado Romance Writers 1997 Award of Excellence for The Debonair Duke.

Anna Jacobs was born in England but emigrated to Australia thirty years ago. Now she and her husband spend part of the year in each country. She's totally addicted to writing, and produces three novels a year. If she slows down, new characters nag her till she tells their stories. She was first published in fiction in 1992 and as of July 2010 she has 50 novels published, a few under other names. She's been married to her own hero for many happy years, and they have two daughters and one grandson

Sally James is one of Marina Oliver's pseudonyms. She has written nine Regencies, and over fifty novels under various pseudonyms, plus half a dozen non-fiction books. Marina has been Chairman of the Romantic Novelists' Association, and is currently one of the RNA's Vice-Presidents. She now lives in an apartment in an old manor house built in 1720, which at one time belonged to Princess Diana's Spencer family. She is married with four children and seven grandchildren.

Shirley Kennedy has written Regency romances for both Signet and Ballantine, and is currently finishing a romantic suspense. She is a graduate of the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada with a BSc in Computer Sciences, and she worked for many years as a computer programmer/analyst.

Amy Lake's interest in British history began with Lady Longford's biography of Queen Victoria, later extending into the Edwardian and Regency periods. She has published three Regency romances, with overlapping characters, of which The Earl's Wife is the first.

Allison Lane is the author of 20 Regency novels and 6 novellas. She is a Holt Medallion Winner and the 2005 Romantic Times Career Achievement Award Winner, as well as National Readers' Choice Awards Finalist for three books.

Katherine lives in Melbourne, Australia. She has been reading for as long as she can remember, and like many another writer of Regencies, discovered her love of the genre through Georgette Heyer. She is a member of the Romance Writers of Australia and has had short stories published in Australian magazines. She fits in writing around her job as a court transcript recorder.

Maggie MacKeever, aka Gail Clark and Grace South, is the author of thirty-plus historical romances, most of them set during England's Regency era. Her first story, about a witch who lived in a tree, was written in third grade. During her various attempts at legitimate employment -negative stripper for a college yearbook company; secretary for a telephone company, the Arco Alaskan pipeline project, a local psychic, and a post production sound house; and, most lengthily, dialogue supervisor for television and feature films -- she also wrote commercials, educational and industrial film narration, and screenplays. (And thank-you notes for the psychic, but those were hardly a career highlight.)

Jennifer Malin is the author of five published romance novels and one published novella. She loved reading from a young age and still has her old Nancy Drew collection to prove it. In her teens, she tried to read only classics, until one day her mother lent her a Regency romance and told her, "This is like those Jane Austen books you read." The story captivated her so much that she stayed up all night to finish it.

Laura Matthews has been writing for more than twenty years. She is the author of thirty novels, mostly Regency (as Laura Matthews) and contemporary women's fiction (as Elizabeth Neff Walker). Her love of the Regency period developed from reading Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen.

Barbara Metzger is the author of over three dozen books and a dozen novellas. She has also been an editor, a proof-reader, a greeting card verse-writer, and an artist. When not painting, writing romances or reading them, she volunteers at the local library, gardens and goes beach-combing and yard-saling.

Lynn Michaels started writing in sixth grade, and she's scarcely stopped since. Her early books were published by Avon's Velvet Glove series, and many later ones by Harlequin Temptation. In between she wrote for Dell and Fawcett, the latter being her Regencies under the pseudonym of Jane Lynson. Her most recent book is Mother of the Bride from Ballantine. Visit her website at: Lynn Michaels

Fenella Miller lives in Essex in an ancient cottage with acres of unspoilt woodland. Her husband and a Border collie share the house. She has two children and two grandchildren. Fenella has always written but was too busy teaching in both secondary and primary schools to complete a book until she was able to give up work six years ago. She now has over twenty different titles published

Regency Reads now offers two free novellas. Try them in as many formats as you wish, to see which format works best for you. None of our ebooks has DRM protection, so it's easy to load the PRC format onto your Kindle, the epub onto your Sony reader, etc. And each ebook you choose will appear on your own personal bookshelf

Cynthia Pratt has written over 20 romances, ranging from classic Regency to Paranormal to Americana. She and her newly retired husband recently moved to the coast of North Carolina. She finds that writing is the perfect career, giving her time to enjoy her family, to read and, above all, to stay up late. She has also written under the names Cynthia Bailey-Pratt, Lydia Browne and Lynn Bailey.

New York Times bestselling romance author Mary Jo Putney was born with a reading addiction, a condition for which there is no known cure. Her entire writing career is an accidental byproduct of buying a computer for other purposes.

Nina Coombs Pykare has published 54 novels in the romance, Regency, inspiration, historical, contemporary, gothic, and mystery fields under a variety of pseudonyms. Her publishers include Avalon, Berkley, Dell, Five Star, Heartsong, Leisure Lovespell, Manor, New American Library, Pocket Books, Silhouette, Zebra, and Lion Press Ltd. "I have literally written since I could hold a pencil," Nina says. “I started college at 32, earned a Ph.D. in English at 42, and sold my first novel when I was 46." Nina has sold hundreds of short stories and articles, as well as puzzles and poems for children of all ages. Some of the latter were written for her four sons and daughter, and now for four grandsons, five granddaughters, and one great-granddaughter. Nina taught a novel writing class for Writer's Digest from 1988 to 2006 and has also taught classes at nearby schools and the YWCA. She was married for 20 years, has been divorced longer than that, and still believes love is the most important thing in the world

From the time she learned to read, no one ever had to wonder what to give Catherine Reynolds as gifts--books! She didn't discover Regencies until fairly late in life and quickly became hooked on them. During one period, when she had read several that left much to be desired, Catherine began to wonder if she couldn't do at least as well. Finally she made the attempt, and the result was two Regency Romances: The Thoroughly Compromised Bride (1991) and The Highwayman (1993). Both books were published by Harlequin and both received Certificates of Excellence from Romantic Times Magazine. The Thoroughly Compromised Bride was B. Dalton's best selling Harlequin Regency for the year.

With several million books in print and New York Times and USA Today's bestseller lists under her belt, former CPA Patricia Rice is one of romance's hottest authors. Her emotionally-charged contemporary and historical romances have won numerous awards, including the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice and Career Achievement Awards. In addition to receiving the Bookrak Bestselling Paperback award, her books have also been honored as Romance Writers of America RITA® finalists in the historical, Regency and contemporary categories.

Even before studying eighteenth-century literature in graduate school, Evelyn Richardson decided she would prefer to have lived between 1775 and 1830. Now living in Boston, she enjoys access to the primary sources that allow her to explore the specific details of the period and immerse herself in the same journals that her heroines enjoyed.

Regina Scott started writing novels in the third grade. Thankfully for literature as we know it, she didn't actually sell her first novel until she had learned a bit more about writing, such as vocabulary, sentence structure, and plot. After numerous short stories and articles in magazines and trade journals, she got serious about her novel writing and went on to publish seventeen historical romances, all set in the marvelous Regency period. Regina Scott and her husband are the parents of two teenage sons. They reside in the Tri-Cities of southeast Washington State. Raised in the Seattle area, Regina Scott is a graduate of the University of Washington. She is also a devout Christian and a decent fencer; owns a historical, fantasy, and science fiction costume collection that takes up over a third of her large closet; and has been known to impersonate an independent consultant specializing in risk communication

Joan Smith is a graduate of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and the Ontario College of Education. She has taught French and English in high school and English in college. When she began writing, her interest in Jane Austen and Lord Byron led to her first choice of genre, the Regency, which she especially liked for its wit and humor.

Sheri Cobb South is the award-winning author of five Regency novels, including The Weaver Takes a Wife, Miss Darby’s Duenna, and Of Paupers and Peers. She has also written a number of teen romances for Bantam’s long-running Sweet Dreams series, and her short fiction has appeared in national magazines such as Woman’s World, ‘Teen, and Campus Life. She made her mystery debut in 2006 with the publication of In Milady’s Chamber, which introduced Bow Street Runner John Pickett. Sheri lives in Mobile, Alabama with her family, and loves to hear from readers. She may be contacted at Cobbsouth@aol.com.

Joan Vincent’s sister brought her 200 Regencies in 1976, and Joan decided she should write one because she loved history and the written word. Thomasina made the Dalton Mass Media list, and Dell purchased seven more manuscripts.

Joan Wolf grew up in the Bronx, New York, and went to Mercy College for her Bachelor's degree and Hunter College for her Master's, both in English and Comparative Literature. Then she taught high school English for nine years in New York City. When her son came along, she and her husband bought a house in Connecticut and she became a stay-at-home mom. Instead of writing her Ph.D. dissertation, she wrote a romance novel. In the past thirty years, she's written 45 books. Visit Joan’s website to learn more about her and her books.

Patricia Wynn is the author of nine Regency romances from Harlequin and Fawcett, and most recently a lead historical, Capturing Annie, from Dorchester. These novels have earned her critical acclaim and a nomination for the RITA Award from Romance Writers of America, as well as made her a two-time finalist for an Award of Excellence from Colorado Romance Writers.