Valerie Sherwood

The Cat Lady Romance Author of the Tidewater

Valerie Sherwood Life and Career

Jeanne Hines was born on July 29, 1922, in West Virginia, USA. However, she came to live and love the coastal areas of the American South, a place she would often include in her novels.

Initially a journalist, she turned to writing Gothic novels under her own name from 1973 to 1977.

Afterward, she would write one romance novel as Rosamond Royal. She would also write several famously as Valerie Sherwood.

Valerie Sherwood Books

Taking advantage of the bodice ripper explosion in publishing, Sherwood penned her first historical romance, This Loving Torment. Warner Books published it in 1977.

She would write 10 books with them from 1977 to 1984. In 1985 Sherwood released her wonderful “Song” pirate trilogy for Pocket Books.

To Love a Rogue and Lisbon, her last books were published by National American Library, under their imprints. Lisbon, her final novel, was released in a hardcover edition first in 1989 by Dutton books. The Onyx paperback edition came out in 1990.

Hines’ only book as Rosamond Royal was Popular Library’s Rapture in 1978.

Feline Devotee

There’s something quite notable about Sherwood besides her swashbuckling romances: she was quite the eccentric cat lady. That is a quality to which I can very much relate.

Every book of hers would be lovingly and effusively dedicated to a special cat she’d known. She had a great many cats in her life like many feline fanciers tend to do.

Her Legacy and Death

No mere 80,000 words were enough to describe the worlds Sherwood created. Therefore, most of her books ran well over 500 pages and some books were entries into longer series.

Her romances would be inhabited by dashing Cavaliers, pirates, rogues, and highwaymen. Often she would tell parallel love stories about more than one couple.

Ever, the wild character, Jeanne Hines passed away at the age of 92 on August 23, 2014.