LaVyrle Spencer

LaVyrle Spencer (born July 17, 1943, in Browerville, Minnesota) is an American romance novelist known for a gentler, more character-driven style than the historical bodice-rippers dominant when she began. She married her high school sweetheart, Dan Spencer, and worked as a teacher's aide before writing her debut novel, The Fulfillment, after being inspired by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss's work; she reportedly woke at 4 a.m. one morning with a recurring dream about her grandmother's farm life and began transcribing it into a notebook. Woodiwiss herself forwarded the manuscript to her own editor at Avon Books, and The Fulfillment was published in 1979.

Over an 18-year career, Spencer published 24 standalone novels -- none of them connected in series -- moving from early historical romance into small-town, family-centered contemporary fiction often set in her native Minnesota. She won five RITA Awards between 1983 and 1990, was inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame in 1988, and had twelve novels reach the New York Times bestseller list. She retired in 1997 after publishing Then Came Heaven, having told Publishers Weekly she always intended to stop once she reached a set financial goal so she could travel and spend time with her family, and has not published a novel since.