Author. A prolific writer, she published 130 romance novels without ever once using the word "sex". The child of an engineer she grew up moving frequently due to her father's job before finishing her education in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. An early job writing short pieces for "The People's Friend" magazine brought her to the notice of the publishing firm of Mills & Boon; taking to heart the advice that she should "never write anything a mother would not want her daughter to read" she produced her debut work, "Life for Two", in 1938. Mrs. MacLeod was to write books with such titles as "Stranger in Their Midst", "Lovesome Hill", and "Dangerous Obsession" for Mills & Boon and its international subsidiary Harlequin Romance over the remainder of her long life, in later years sometimes using the name Catherine Airlie. While the majority of her output was set in her native Scotland she sometimes used places visited in her frequent travels as a backdrop. Her "The Dark Fortune", set in the time of Mary, Queen of Scots, garnered her the Romantic Novelists' Association Historical Award for 1962. Comfortable but never wealthy, Mrs. MacLeod lived out her days in North Yorkshire and at her death was at work on her 131st. novel. Looking back at her large body of work she said simply "All my stories had a happy ending".
Author. A prolific writer, she published 130 romance novels without ever once using the word "sex". The child of an engineer she grew up moving frequently due to her father's job before finishing her education in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. An early job writing short pieces for "The People's Friend" magazine brought her to the notice of the publishing firm of Mills & Boon; taking to heart the advice that she should "never write anything a mother would not want her daughter to read" she produced her debut work, "Life for Two", in 1938. Mrs. MacLeod was to write books with such titles as "Stranger in Their Midst", "Lovesome Hill", and "Dangerous Obsession" for Mills & Boon and its international subsidiary Harlequin Romance over the remainder of her long life, in later years sometimes using the name Catherine Airlie. While the majority of her output was set in her native Scotland she sometimes used places visited in her frequent travels as a backdrop. Her "The Dark Fortune", set in the time of Mary, Queen of Scots, garnered her the Romantic Novelists' Association Historical Award for 1962. Comfortable but never wealthy, Mrs. MacLeod lived out her days in North Yorkshire and at her death was at work on her 131st. novel. Looking back at her large body of work she said simply "All my stories had a happy ending".
Bio by: Bob Hufford
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