Balogh, Mary (1944-)

Best-selling author Mary Balogh (née Jenkins) was born March 24, 1944, in Swansea, Wales. A prolific novelist, Balogh is known primarily for her Regency romances, romance novels set in 19th-century England during the regency of George, Prince of Wales.

Balogh attended the University of Wales at Cardiff, studying first English language and literature, then Education. She moved to Kipling, Saskatchewan in 1967 for a two-year teaching contract. She settled in Kipling after marrying Robert Balogh, with whom she has three grown Children.

Balogh began writing in her spare time while raising her children and working as a high school principal and English teacher. Her first novel, A Masked Deception, was published in 1985 by Signet, earning her the New York-based Romantic Times Magazine's Best New Regency Author award. Many more awards followed, and in 1988 her success allowed her to retire from her twenty-year career as an educator to commence writing full-time.

In 1999, Balogh signed with Dell, who published her first hardcover novel, More Than a Mistress, in 2000. Since then, several of her novels have appeared in the New York Times' top-35 best-sellers list and in the Publishers Weekly top 15.

Justin Messner

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Further Reading

Clemence, Verne. 2000. “Romance for Everyone: Saskatchewan Writer Puts to Rest Reader Stereotype.” Saskatoon StarPhoenix (December 2), E4; Froese, Christalee. 2003. “A World Away from Regency England.” Regina Leader-Post (May 24), G1.