Biography of Sophie Weston, Author
I was a reader before I was a writer – but only just. My proud father took my first – self-illustrated – story to his office where deft colleagues gave it a smart cardboard cover and applied industrial strength staples to its spine. I was four and a half.
So I taught myself to type and wrote everything from prim aliens bent on reforming the world to swashbucklers. Then Harlequin Mills and Boon published my first romance. Fifty or so more have followed.
I live in London with a little rescue cat who is slowly, slowly coming out from under the bed and patting pens off the desk and onto the carpet, like all her predecessors. Sadly only away from the camera, so far. She has a good purr, though, and is an excellent Writer’s Companion.
This is just as well as I now write full time – and have terrible trouble letting a book go. I mean terrible.
Of those I have allowed out, 12 million books have sold in 27 languages and more than 100 countries. They’re mainly contemporary romances, most published by Harlequin Mills & Boon. (Full fiction book list here.)
Tasting Menu for the Curious
To Marry a Prince – (as Sophie Page) a twenty-first century Prince of Wales, descended from Queen Charlotte, falls in love with a not very ordinary girl. Not at all what he’s used to. A bit about the alternative reality and how it came to be written here
Goblin Court – an early book that still made me laugh when I revised it for republishing in my Vintage series. Free Spirit versus Sexy Control Freak hero – who now gets his own point of view on the page!
In the Arms of the Sheikh – just so I don’t give you all the lollipops. Toughest thing I ever wrote. Months and months it took me. Friends started to call the book El Sodh. Readers like it though, so maybe the blood sweat and tears don’t show.
And on this website, for free, my short story A Little Bit of Sparkle and a multi chapter mystery for Christmas, my lockdown serial.
Non Fiction
As Jenny Haddon, I co-edited the 50th anniversary memoir of the UK’s Romantic Novelists Association, Fabulous at Fifty.
It was great fun and also a tremendous privilege to work with the then RNA President, the legendary Diane Pearson, editor of Terry Pratchett, Joanna Trollope, Jilly Cooper and many, many more. Di was not only a splendid editor, but a best selling novelist in her own right. Her Csardas was greeted by one critic as the European Gone With the Wind.
With fellow novelist Elizabeth Hawksley I also wrote Getting the Point, a panic-free guide to punctuation, published by Floris.
Sophie’s 5 favourite things
- BBC Radio, especially More or Less, Anton Lesser as Falco, A Good Read
- Madrigals and Meatloaf
- The scent of mown grass.
- First light
- People sitting round my table, eating, drinking and laughing; sometimes planning books.
Not books? Well, I used to travelled a lot internationally for work. As a result I hate airports but sort of love e-books. I never feel quite the same about them as I do for physical books, where I revel in the sheer tactile pleasure. And that makes me feel a bit mean, because e-books have helped me out in some pretty bleak cities. So I can’t choose between them and that makes both fall out of the top 5.