Amanda Quick Books In Order

Publication Order of Vanza Books

Publication Order of Lavinia Lake Books

Publication Order of Ladies of Lantern Street Books

Publication Order of Burning Cove Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Dreamlight Trilogy Books

Publication Order of Looking Glass Trilogy Books

Amanda Quick is the pen name used by one of the most popular authors in America named Jayne Ann Krentz. She liked to write most of her novels based on the Suspense, Fantasy, and Romance genres. Amanda is best known for being featured in the New York Times bestseller list for as many as 40 times consecutively. But, those 40 novels were written by her under different pseudonyms. The other pen names that she has used for writing her novels are Jayne Castle, Jayne Bentley, Amanda Glass, Jayne Taylor, Stephanie James, etc. Besides these, Amanda has also written some novels under her original name Jayne Ann Krentz. As of now, author Quick uses just three pen names for writing her novels based on different genres. She uses her original name after marriage for writing contemporary romance and suspense novels, whereas under the pseudonym Amanda Quick, she mostly writes the novels based on the historical suspense and romance novels. Other than that, Amanda also writes paranormal and futuristic romantic-suspense novels using her maiden name.

The success of Amanda as one of the prominent authors can be understood from the fact that she has been able to sell more than 35 million copies of her novels in print all over the world. With this immense success, she began experimenting with the plot of her novels and went on to create a unique sub-genre called futuristic romance. She used this sub-genre to develop the plot of her novel Sweet Starfire. Amanda even expanded the boundaries of this genre with her 1996 novel named Amaryllis, which was the first paranormal futuristic suspense and romance novel. Amanda writes all her romance novels with so much dedication and understanding that she has already begun considering herself as the outspoken advocate of the romance genre. The immense success of her romance novels has helped her win the Susan Koppelman Award for the Feminist Studies. Author Quick was born on 28 March 1948 in Cobb, California, The United States.

During initial 10 years of her life, she was brought up by her mother named Alberta in Borrego Springs, along with her two brothers. Later, she attended the California University, located in Santa Cruz and earned her degree in B. A in the subject of History in the year 1970. Amanda was fearful that she will not be able to find a satisfying job with her degree, and therefore, she decided to pursue a graduate degree in the subject of Library Science from the San Jose State University. Just after completing her graduation, Amanda married an engineer named Frank Krentz. The two had met each other for the first time while studying at the San Jose University. After that, she shifted to the Virgin Islands along with her husband and began working in elementary school as a librarian. However, left the job after a period of only one year because she thought that the period was as an unmitigated disaster for her career.

Amanda realized that being a librarian at an elementary school, she was also required to get into teaching, which she did not like. Therefore, she left the job even though she liked being a librarian and decided to move a level higher with the academia. Eventually, author Quick joined the library system of the Duke University. A while later, she moved to Seattle in Washington along with her husband. While working in the libraries, author Quick was quite generous and often shared her wealth. She even founded the Castle Humanities Fund that allowed the library at the UCSC University to purchase extra books. Amanda has also distributed money to as many as 15 elementary schools in Seattle, for enhancing their library budgets. It was while working at the Duke University that Amanda developed an interest in writing stories. She says that she kept writing continuously for a period of 6 years and faced rejections in all her attempts to get her stories published. But, Amanda kept on trying and eventually became one of the noteworthy authors of the romance novels.

One of the initial novel series written by author Amanda Quick is titled ‘Vanza’. It consists of a total of 4 novels published between the years 1998 and 2005. The first novel of this series was published under the title ‘With This Ring’ and was released by the Bantam Books publishing house in the year 1998. The plot of this novel deals with the central characters named Beatrice Poole and Leo Drake. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, Leo Drake is introduced as a notorious and eccentric man. He was very much reclusive and was well known as the ‘Mad Monk of Monkcrest’. People also knew him as an expert of antiquities. Hearing about his expertise, Beatrice Poole demanded his assistance, to which he seemed quite reluctant. She is introduced as a freethinking author and is looking for the famous antiquities of the Forbidden Rings of the Aphrodite. Beatrice believed that this mystic treasure was responsible was the death of her uncle. She sees a fascinating hero of one of her novels in Leo Drake and seems pretty convinced that he is the only one who could help her to find the treasure. However, by spending just 5 minutes with Beatrice Poole, Leo becomes sure that he has never seen a woman as infuriating as she was. Their alliance also seems to be dangerous for their own lives because a villain is keeping a close look at their activities in London. He seems to be waiting for them to find the Forbidden Rings, after which he will kill them.

The second novel of the Vanza series was published under the title ‘I Thee Wed’. It was released by the Bantam Books publishing house in the year 1999. The plot of this novel revolves around the lives of the main characters named Edison Stokes and Emma Grayson. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, it is shown that earning a living by being the companion of a lady with an original mind and a sharp tongue is not easy. Due to this reason, Emma Greyson had to change 3 different jobs in 6 months. She also seems quite bored with her current job at a country house party. But, an unusual encounter with Edison Stokes helps her to become his assistant. Stokes is on a mission to catch a thief who has robbed an ancient book. He also suspects that the thief is present as one of the guests of the house party and looking for a woman like Emma to test an elixir. Working secretly for Edison Stokes brings chilling danger and unexpected passion in the life of Emma Grayson. She goes on to realize the awful truth of her job after she comes across a murder. Now, she is required to work out a deceiving plan with Stokes in order to catch the merciless killer or else she will lose her dream man forever. And her life too, along with his.

Amanda Quick: a woman who has many names. Under several pseudonyms, Amanda Quick is often at the very top of New York Times bestseller list. As our contemporary writer, Quick has become one of the most popular writers nowadays, who specialized in romances, and she describes her writing as a compulsion, as something that she loves passionately.

BIOGRAPHY

She was born in Cobb, California, under the name Jaynne Ann Castle, in 1948. She was raised by her mother Alberta, along with two brothers, in Borrego Springs, and earned a B.A. in history at Santa Cruz, University of California in 1970. She also has her master’s degree in Library Science from San Jose State University. There she met her future husband, Frenk Krentz. Amanda then moved with him, and worked as a school librarian in the Virgin Islands, and since she liked that job, she contributed to the development of many school libraries at the time. Even today, Amanda Quick always says that her experience as a librarian, and her master work in that field is very helpful when it comes to the research for her books. And that was one of the reasons why she established the Castle Humanities Fund at UCSC’s University Library. Later, she became interested in higher academic circles, and worked for a while in Duke University library system. The couple then moved to Seattle, Washington. Today, she is regarded as one of the most successful and popular writers. She received number of awards, among which one particularly stands out, and that is Susan Koppelman Award for Feminist Studies. There is almost a legend about her working day, because once she starts working on some book, she will completely stay dedicated to it. Her books are printed in various additions throughout the years, and she maintains the title of popular romance writer. Her outside interests are vegetarian cooking, and working for the Writers Programs at the University of Washington extension program. She is also the editor of a nonfiction essay collection, published by University of Pennsylvania Press, called Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance.

WRITINGS

As almost every writer who is a beginner, Quick had also experienced rejection letters. When she was a little girl, she used to read mystery stories, science fiction novels mostly written by Robert Heinlein, adventure stories etc. While she was working at Duke, she began writing romance novels. During those hard times, she was even on the verge of giving up on her writing dream, but she decided to, somehow, go on. Her first novel Gentle Pirate was published in 1979, under the name of Jayne Castle – her birth name. This novel belonged to the line of romances she wrote, and it tells a story about Simon Kendrick and Kirsten Mallory who work together and are attracted to each other.

Her name Jayne Castle was reserved for one of the publishers, since she signed a contract, and therefore, when she left that certain publisher, she could no longer use the name Jayne Castle. So, that is one of the reasons why she had so many different pen names later: Amanda Quick, Amanda Glass, Jayne Bentley, Stephanie James, Jayne Ann Krentz. With this last pseudonym she marked her contemporary romance novels; that is the name she decided to use for romantic genre. Basically, Jayne Ann Krentz is reserved for romantic suspense, Amanda Quick for historical novels, and Jayne Castle for futuristic science fiction.

Sweet Starfire is her first futuristic romance. It was released in 1986. Although it is signed with the name Jayne Ann Krentz, exactly this book began the era of the name Amanda Quick for her historical romances, as she said that it is a historical romance which is set in some other, different world. The book was very popular and successful. Like she was saying, the set of the novel is a futuristic universe. Teague Severance is an adventurer, captain of a starship. Cidra Rainforest is a beautiful heroine who hires him to find a shrine that was built by extinct alien race, and they live through many adventures together. Of course, during this adventure time, the two fall in love, and certain sexual tension between them is overwhelming the novel in a seductive way. Many of Quick’s novels have elements of science fiction, and some critics believe that Robert Heinlein – one of the most famous SF writers – influenced her to write novels like this – novels that have more profound themes and raise many philosophical questions. Magazine specializing in romance novels, called Romantic Times, rated this novel with 4.5 out of 5 stars, and she also received the Career Achievement Award from them.

In 1998, her novel The Waiting Game was published. The novel was adapted for the Harlequin Romance Series in 2001. The main character, Sara Fraser, sets off on a mysterious trip to find her uncle. However, instead of her uncle, she finds Adrian Saville – a man who decides to help her in tracking down her uncle (Lowell). Of course, many dangers are lurking around them, and Adrian realizes that Sara is the woman he’s been dreaming of. It is a story full of mystery, danger, love, secrets, and it definitely deserves the movie in Harlequin series. The movie is directed by Vic Sarin, and the main actors are Chris Potter and Chandra West.

Since she is the writer for many different genres, and she manages to combine them successfully, the classification of her novels is extraordinary. Nevertheless, Amanda Quick often declared that romance as a genre is the most endurable one, because it deals with love and human emotions in general. And she certainly did contribute to the popularity of this category of novels, especially by adding extra science-fiction, futuristic, or even paranormal, elements. Furthermore, women in her novels are always witty, clever, unusually beautiful, and men that are caught in the adventures with them are strong males, ready to risk, and passionate. There is almost always some fantastic note that enriches and intensifies the love story. That is why her novels intrigue the audience throughout all these years.

6 Responses to “Amanda Quick”

1. Carol Bellman: 3 months ago

   Just started reading her novels and am hooked. Thanks!

   Reply
2. Dawn: 1 year ago

   I love th s historical romance that are written under the name Amanda Quick I have read them all several times over. I wish she would write some mor

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3. Tammy Howard: 1 year ago

   I first read Amanda quick years ago and haven’t stopped yet. I love her in all her genres

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4. jocelyn brown: 1 year ago

   I fell in love with Amanda Quick & Jayne Anne Krentz from the first book I read. She is so remarkable in taking you away from every day and letting you get involved in the historical as well as the more current days. I believe I have read most of her books & now waiting for the last of the Burning Cove series to come out…what a great story teller she is from a very avid reader from all her books!

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5. Colleen A Hermannsson: 2 years ago

   I love Jayne’s historical romance novels written under the pseudonym of Amanda Quick. I have read and re-read them many times. I wish there were more.

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6. Lenore: 7 years ago

   This author was recommended to me by a friend when I mentioned we were going on a camping trip and I wanted some lighthearted well written historical romance, she suggested Amanda Quick and I was hooked, I have read every book and go back and reread occasionally, they are like an old friend. I then went on to Jayne Ann Krentz and Jayne Castle, what a wonderful array of stories all from the same woman I throughly enjoy all her books.

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