About Me

To contact Margaret McDonagh, please send an e-mail to .

I cannot remember a time when my nose wasn't buried in a book. My parents fostered my love of reading from an early age and I devoured everything I could get my hands on. I adored children's classics like the Anne of Green Gables series and The Secret Garden. I loved Enid Blyton's Famous Five and Secret Seven, the adventure books by Willard Price, and the Sue Barton nurse books by Helen Dore-Boylston. Most of all I loved the wonderful pony books that kept me entertained for hours on end ... authors like Mary O'Hara, Ruby Ferguson and the Pullein-Thompson sisters. They inspired my dreams and fired my imagination. Then came more grown up books, fiction and non-fiction, plus the escape to the world of Mills & Boon® romances! I read avidly but always knew that I had to write.

Ever since December 2005, when I received the phone call telling me that Harlequin Mills & Boon® were to buy my manuscript for their Medical Romance™ line, the months have flown by! It was a dream come true and one, after twenty years of writing novellas for My Weekly Story Collection and Linford large print, plus serials and magazine short stories for The People's Friend, I believed would never happen. I was stunned, tearful, in shock ... and so excited! It took me a while to prise myself off the ceiling!

My first Medical Romance™, The Italian Doctor's Bride, was published in the UK in October 2006 and received a Cataromance Reviewers' Choice Nomination. My second book, A Doctor Worth Waiting For, won the Cataromance Award in 2007.

Since then I have continued to develop a series of loosely-linked Medical Romances™ set in the fictional rural Scottish town of Strathlochan and the surrounding villages, creating a real sense of community. A double-bill of Strathlochan stories The Emergency Doctor Claims His Wife and The Rebel Surgeon's Proposal came out in May and June 2009 respectively, and my ninth Strathlochan story, Italian Doctor, Dream Proposal was released in October 2009. More Strathlochan stories are in the pipeline and will hopefully be published in due course.

My most recent writing project, however, involved a welcome return to Cornwall and a new 8-book Medical Romance™ series called St Piran. This expands on the very successful 16-book Brides Of Penhally Bay series, introducing a whole new cast of characters at St Piran's Hospital and catching up with a few familiar faces from Penhally, too. The series begins in December 2010 with a duo volume containing books 1 and 2 by Caroline Anderson and Carol Marinelli. My own contribution is book 3, Italian Surgeon, Forbidden Bride, is released in January 2011. I am now returning to Strathlochan to catch up with Gus & Holly before moving on with several other stories waiting in the wings.

All the Strathlochan stories are loosely-linked, with familiar characters popping up again from time to time, and it is a fictional world I hope readers will enjoy discovering as much as I love writing. I have chosen to stay with southern Scotland as the setting for most of my books because I love the feel of close-knit communities and medical professionals for whom caring is more than a job. As well as the natural beauty of the area, the people are wonderful, and I have loved the place since my very first family holiday there as a youngster. A long time ago!

It's a hard life having to sit and stare at a picture of a yummy man all day long and write romantic and sexy things about him! I have a great selection of photos to call on and on which I base a look or a mood or a trait for my characters. My disappointment at having to file the pictures away when the manuscript is done is only eased by throwing myself into the next set of characters and getting out a new hero photo to begin work on! And it is good to know that it isn't really goodbye – my characters will live on and reappear in future.

Although I have never worked as a medical professional, I have rather too much experience as a patient! I also have some very good friends working in various health fields who are extremely generous, providing any information I need and answering my endless questions. Having a passion for learning makes researching an involving pleasure and I love developing new characters, getting to know them and setting them challenges to overcome.

Romance writers are a terrific bunch of people. I feel very blessed because writing has brought me many joys and many special friends who have been so generous with their advice and so unstinting in their support. And I am honoured to be sharing shelf space with some of my very favourite category romance authors whose books I have read and enjoyed and found an inspiration for so long. I am also so grateful to my wonderful editor for believing in me and for all her encouragement and support.

Aside from writing and reading books, my hobbies include listening to music, debating current affairs and watching sport, especially football (soccer), athletics, golf and motorsports. I hate cooking, housework and hot weather but I love the countryside, crisp autumn days and Innocent smoothies! I have a passion for animals and would love a whole menagerie, but at the moment my experiences are with the animals I foster. I sponsor six orphan elephants and a baby rhino with the fabulous David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya. The elephants are called Lualeni, Kimana, Suguta, Shimba, Sinya and Dida, and the baby rhino is Maalim. I also sponsor a puppy called Patsy who is in training with Guide Dogs for the Blind in the UK.

Special thanks are due to the amazing artist Jim Wylie who has allowed me to use some images of his wonderfully atmospheric paintings to bring Scotland, the setting for many of my stories, to life on these pages.  Please see the links page for details of his own website and places where his incredible work can be viewed and bought.

Most importantly, I would like to say a big thank you to you, the readers, for visiting my website and for your interest in my books.  I hope you continue to enjoy my stories, my characters and the special world of Strathlochan. 

If you would like to email me, I would love to hear from you ... and I hope you continue to enjoy the magic of reading all your lives.

Best wishes,
Margaret

You can find details of all my books on the BOOKS and BACKLIST pages

(Copyright Margaret McDonagh – 2010)
(Jim Wylie copyright)

Artwork by Jim Wylie