Lady Francesca Haughston had given up on romance for herself, finding passion instead in making desirable matches for others. So it seemed only fair, when she learned she had been deceived into breaking her own long-ago engagement to Sinclair, Duke of Rochford, that she now help him find the perfect wife.

Of course, Francesca was certain any spark of passion between them had long since died--her own treatment of him had seen to that. The way Sinclair gazed at her or swept her suddenly into his arms...well, that was merely practice for when a younger, more suitable woman caught his eye. But soon Francesca found his lessons in love scandalously irresistible--and a temptation that could endanger them both.

Candace Camp cannot remember a time when she was not interested in creating stories. Born into a newspaper family--her mother had been a reporter and her father was the business manager of the Amarillo, Texas, newspaper--some of Candace's earliest memories are of making up stories which she played out on the floor of their den with whatever objects were handy. She began writing down her stories when she was about 10, and from then on writing was her favorite form of relaxation. Explains Camp, "I was always very shy and did not talk much. However, in written form, I could express all my thoughts and feelings."

Writing remained only a hobby, though, as Candace attended college at the University of Texas at Austin and West Texas State University, then became a secondary teacher in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. She later moved to North Carolina, where she worked in the trust department of a bank. It was there that she discovered the romance novel in modern form and started to write her first romance. She also began law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and while she was there, she finished her first novel, entitled Bonds of Love. Ms. Camp credits the rigorous training of law school with teaching her the discipline necessary to finish a book.

Bonds of Love was published by Jove Publishing in 1978, under the pseudonym Lisa Gregory. Ms. Camp gave up the practice of law to devote her time to writing. Two pseudonyms, 43 books, and 22 years later, Candace Camp writes under her own name for MIRA--and still loves creating stories.

She has been married for 20 years and has an 18-year-old daughter, who has started on her own career path in the field of acting.