Penny Jordan
Author · 1946–2011

Penny Jordan

Penny Jordan was a British novelist (1946-2011). Born in Preston.

Our catalogue lists 7 books by Penny Jordan, mostly romantic suspense and gothic fiction. They span 1988 to 2011. The most-read is Power Play (Mills and Boon Despatch Cycle) (1988).

Books by Penny Jordan

Biography

Penelope "Penny" Jones was born on 24 November 1946 at about seven pounds in a nursing home in Preston, Lancashire, England. She was the first child of Anthony Winn Jones, an engineer, who died at 85, and his wife Margaret Louise Groves Jones. She has a brother, Anthony, and a sister, Prudence "Pru". She had been a keen reader from the childhood - her mother used to leave her in the children's section of their local library whilst she changed her father's library books. She was a storyteller long before she began to write romantic fiction. At the age of eight, she was creating serialised bedtime stories, featuring make-believe adventures, for her younger sister Prue, who was always the heroine. At eleven, she fell in love with Mills & Boon, and with their heroes. In those days the books could only be obtained via private lending libraries, and she quickly became a devoted fan, and was thrilled to bits when the books went on full sale, in shops and she could have them for keeps. Penny left grammar school in Rochdale with O-Levels in English Language, English Literature and Geography. She first discovered Mills & Boon books, via a girl she worked with. She married Steve Halsall, an accountant and a "lovely man", who smoked and drank too heavily, suffered oral cancer with bravery and dignity. Out of his own money, and at a time when he could ill afford it, her late husband bought her the small electric typewriter on which she typed her first novels. Her husband died at the beginning of the 21st century.

Authors like Penny Jordan