Jeanne Hines was born on 1922 in West Virginia by landed gentry. She says "My family thought I'd be just like everybody else, get married and stop. I'm a real character. I'm not really like anybody I know." Jeanne worked as a reporter and fashion magazine illustrator before turning to became a novelist. Published since 1973, she signed gothic novels as her real name and romance novels as Valerie Sherwood and Rosamond Royal. She won the Romantic Times 1987-1988 Career Achievement Award in the category of "historical adventure". When Chris Marie Green (aka Crystal Green), was nineteen years old, she wrote a fan letter to Jeanne, and the popular writer answered her gushing missive and inspired Chris to write her first romance. She wrote while she traveled with her husband between their five mansions distributed on the East Coast, but spent most of their time in a fusty Charlotte, North Carolina, ranch-style house.