Hardy, Charlotte

PERSONAL:

Married. Education: London University, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—Jane Conway Agency, 1 Old Compton St., London W1D 5JA, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Novelist. Worked as an actress on stage and for television and films for fifteen years; has also worked as a tour guide.

WRITINGS:

Julia Stone, Piatkus (London, England), 1995.

Far from Home, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1997.

The Last Days of Innocence, Piatkus (London, England), 1998.

Abby O'Leary, Piatkus (London, England), 2001.

Sarah, Severn House Publishers (Sutton, England), 2006.

Meg, Severn House Publishers (Sutton, England), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Charlotte Hardy is a novelist who writes primarily in the genre of historical romance. Her Far from Home is set in nineteenth-century England and tells the story of a young Irish woman who has followed her lover (the father of her unborn child) to London, only to be betrayed and left to make a way for herself. In a review for Booklist, Melanie Duncan described the protagonist as "a strong character who weathers the failures in her life to emerge stronger." In Abby O'Leary, the title character is an Irish teenager who flees to London when her landlord's son sullies her reputation, only to stumble into a relationship that could present a chance at a new life. The protagonist in Sarah has fled her abusive husband to take a position as a governess in a remote English town. She makes strides towards forging bonds with her host family, only to have her life in danger once again when her husband arrives on the scene. Booklist reviewer Shelley Mosley commented that the novel has "all the ingredients of a classic gothic romance."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, January 1, 1997, Melanie Duncan, review of Far from Home, p. 820; June 1, 2006, Shelley Mosley, review of Sarah, p. 47.