Johanna Helen Lindsey was an American writer of historical romance novels. All of her books reached the New York Times bestseller list, many reaching No. 1.
Biography
Personal life
Her father was Edwin Dennis Howard, a soldier in the U.S. Army, stationed in Germany, where she was born. The family moved about a great deal when she was young. Her father always dreamed of retiring to Hawaii and after he died in 1964, Lindsey and her mother settled there to honor him. In 1970, when she was still in school, she married Ralph Bruce Lindsey, becoming a young housewife. The marriage continued, the couple residing in Hawaii and producing three children; Alfred, Joseph and Garret, who already have made her a grandmother. After her husband's death, Lindsey moved to Maine and did not remarry. She died on October 27, 2019 at the age of 67 from lung cancer.
Writing career
Lindsey wrote her first book, Captive Bride, in 1977 "on a whim". The book was a success, as have been the forty-nine novels that followed. As of 2006 more than fifty-eight million copies of her books have been sold worldwide, and her work has been translated into twelve languages.
Style and reception
Owing to their diversity of settings Lindsey's work covers a number of romance subgenres, including medieval, Regency, western, Viking, and even science fiction. Her most popular books are a series of Regency sagas about the fictional Malory family. Lindsey's stories have been heavily criticised for what has been viewed as absurd and clichéd characterisations, poor structure and pacing, unrealistic plotting, and generally bad writing. They have also been accused of perpetuating outdated and problematic notions about sexual assault, the role of women in relationships, and other cultures. In April 2017 popular YouTube book-vlogger LilyCReads reviewed Lindsey's 1989 novel Savage Thunder, one of three in the author's "Wyoming westerns" series. The video was called "This is literally the worst book i've ever read.." and over the course of twenty minutes the titular Lily C derides almost every aspect of the novel, both in the writing and messages. Messages challenged in the video include a scene where the hero, a half-white, half-Native American adventurer, sexually touches the heroine while she sleeps and, when she wakes up and questions him about this, tells her that she is his property and has been since she first allowed him to sleep with her. Meanwhile, scorn is also reserved for the heroine, an English duchess, who describes her seduction of the hero as a "rape" and heavily encourages him to dress less like a Native and more like a white man for her. The covers of Lindsey's novels have been widely parodied, fitting in as they do with a trend in romance publishing to use gaudy painted designs that feature a muscular male model with his chest exposed, towering above or otherwise dominating floridly dressed women.
