Robyn Donald

Robyn Donald (born 14 August 1940) is a prolific New Zealand writer of romance novels since 1977. Her books have print runs of up to 500,000 copies at a time.

Biography Donald was born in Warkworth where her father owned a dairy farm. She trained and worked as a teacher. In 1960, she married Donald James Kingston. She now lives at Kerikeri in Northland.

At a time when her husband was suffering from a heart attack, he encouraged her to finish the manuscript she was writing at the time, and send it off. She was not convinced, but since his doctor had asked her to humor her husband, she finished the manuscript, and sent it to the editors. Three months later, she was surprised to receive a letter from the editor saying that if she made a few revisions they would buy her novel Bride at Whangatapu. Donald has written over 85 published novels for Mills & Boon that have been translated into 25 languages.

Her first romance titled Bride at Whangatapu was published under the exegesis of Mills & Boon in 1977, and her fiftieth novel The Mirror Bride was published in 1996. She writes for the English Mills and Boon romance series, and all her books have also been re-edited under Harlequin Enterprises Limited series. They are largely urban Auckland-based romances set in the elite of corporate executives, property investors and lawyers with feisty independent career-oriented heroines and apparently callous and dominating heroes; compared to the earlier South Island-oriented Anglophile romances of Essie Summers.