Janey King (born 1947 in

Denbigh Denbigh (; cy, Dinbych; ) is a market town and a community in Denbighshire, Wales. Formerly, the county town, the Welsh name translates to "Little Fortress"; a reference to its historic castle. Denbigh lies near the Clwydian Hills. History ...

, Wales) is a British

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

and

romance novel A romance novel or romantic novel generally refers to a type of genre fiction novel which places its primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and usually has an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Pre ...

ist, writing under the pseudonym of Rosie Thomas. She is the author of 20 novels and ranks among the top 100 authors whose books are borrowed from United Kingdom libraries. She is a two-time winner of the

Romantic Novel of the Year The Romantic Novel of the Year Award is an award for romance novels since 1960, presented by Romantic Novelists' Association, and since 2003, the novellas, also won the Love Story of the Year (now RoNA Rose Award). In 2018, awards were given to ...

award.

Biography

Born Janey Morris, she grew up in a north Wales village. Her mother died when she was ten years old. She was educated at

Millfield Millfield is a public school (English independent day and boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) located in Street, Somerset, England. It was founded in 1935. Millfield is a registered charity and is the largest co-educational boarding schoo ...

and later studied at

St Hilda's College, Oxford St Hilda's College is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college is named after the Anglo-Saxon Saint, Hilda of Whitby and was founded in 1893 as a hall for women; it ...

. She worked as a journalist and in publishing before undertaking full-time writing. She drew her pseudonym from her mother's name, Rose, and her sister's married name, Thomas. She has published numerous novels since 1982, with several of them becoming top ten bestsellers. Her books deal with the common themes of love and loss.

Awards

She is one of only a few authors to have twice won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the

Romantic Novelists' Association The Romantic Novelists' Association (RNA) is the professional body that represents authors of romantic fiction in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1960 by Denise Robins (first president), Barbara Cartland (first vice-president), Vivian Stuar ...

. She won in 1985 for her third novel, ''Sunrise'', and in 2007 for ''Iris and Ruby''. In 2012 the Romantic Novelists' Association awarded Best Epic Romance of the Year to her 2011 novel, ''The Kashmir Shawl''.

Personal

Thomas married her husband, a literary agent, after graduating university. They had two children. After their divorce in the mid-1990s, she turned to traveling and became an avid

mountaineer Mountaineering or alpinism, is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending tall mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas. Indoor climbing, sport climbing, an ...

. On her 60th birthday, she climbed the

Eiger The Eiger () is a mountain of the Bernese Alps, overlooking Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland, just north of the main watershed and border with Valais. It is the easternmost peak of a ridge crest that extends a ...

in Switzerland. She has also competed in the

Peking to Paris The Peking to Paris motor race was an automobile race, originally held in 1907, between Peking (now Beijing), then Qing China (now the People's Republic of China) and Paris, France (then the Third French Republic), a distance of . The idea for ...

car rally Rally is a wide-ranging form of motorsport with various competitive motoring elements such as speed tests (often called ''rally racing),'' navigation tests, or the ability to reach waypoints or a destination at a prescribed time or average speed. ...

. She lives in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

Bibliography

She has written the following works:

Novels

*''Celebration'' (1982) (known as ''Love's Choice'' in the United States) *''Follies'' (1983) *''Sunrise'' (1984) *''The White Dove'' (1986) *''Strangers'' (1987) *''Bad Girls, Good Women'' (1988) *''A Woman of Our Times'' (1990) *''All My Sins Remembered'' (1991) *''Other People's Marriages'' (1993) *''A Simple Life'' (1995) *''Every Woman Knows a Secret'' (1996) *''Moon Island'' (1998) *''White'' (2000) *''The Potter's House'' (2001) *''If My Father Loved Me'' (2003) *''Sun at Midnight'' (2004) *''Iris and Ruby'' (2006) *''Constance'' (2007) *''Lovers & Newcomers'' (2010) *''The Kashmir Shawl'' (2011) *''The Illusionists'' (2014) *''Daughter of the House'' (2015)

Non-fiction

*''Border Crossing: On the Road from Peking to Paris'' (1998)

References

External links

Interview: 10 January 2013
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Rosie 1947 births Living people Date of birth missing (living people) RoNA Award winners People educated at Millfield 20th-century British novelists 21st-century British novelists 20th-century British women writers 21st-century British women writers Women romantic fiction writers British women novelists People from Denbigh Pseudonymous women writers 20th-century pseudonymous writers 21st-century pseudonymous writers