They have three children and a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.ĭuring Mary’s early marriage and young motherhood, she was a busy woman working full time as a teacher, devoted mother, and wife, but she always held on to the dream of being an author. Halfway through her contract, she met her soon-to-be husband, Robert Balogh.Īfter marriage, Mary and Robert settled into the town of Kipling, Saskatchewan, where Mary continued to work as a teacher, eventually working up to the level of principal. Upon graduation from university, she accepted a two-year teaching contract in the small prairie town in Saskatchewan, Canada. She and Moira would fill notebooks with stories and talk about how they would become famous authors one day.īefore Mary Jenkins would become the famous author, Mary Balogh, she decided to become a teacher, as that was a practical goal. It was in creating stories about these dolls that Mary first discovered her love of storytelling. When she and her older sister, Moira, were young, they had a collection of dolls they would always play with. Though material possessions were few and life was sometimes difficult, Mary had a generally idyllic childhood, in part because of her active imagination. She was born Mary Jenkins in 1944 in postwar Swansea, Wales, UK, a town that had been heavily bombed and was still under rationing for a portion of her childhood. Her novel, Simply Magic, was a finalist in the Quill Awards.

Dalton awards, and a Romantic Times Lifetime Achievement Award. Since then, she has written over 100 novels and numerous novellas, with her most famous being the New York Times bestselling Slightly Series, which follows the always intriguing Bedwyn siblings and the Simply Series, which follows four teachers at Miss Martin’s School for Girls in Bath, England.Īs a result of her incredible writing career, she has won many awards over the years, including the Borders Group Bestselling Historical of the Year, several Waldenbooks awards, two B.

That book, A Masked Deception, was published by Signet in 1985 and won a Romantic Times Award for Regency Best New Writer.

Mary Balogh penned her first historical romance in 1983.

Simply Perfect by Mary Balogh