Winters, Angela

PERSONAL: Born in Chicago (some sources say Evanston), IL. Education: Graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Arabesque, 2000 M Street NW, Suite 602, Washington, DC 20036. E-mail—ajw827@yahoo.com; angela_winters@yahoo.com.

CAREER: Freelance writer and diversity consultant.

WRITINGS:

ROMANCE NOVELS

Only You, Arabesque (Washington, DC), 1997.

(With Cheryl Faye and Monique Gilmore) Mama Dear, Arabesque (Washington, DC), 1998.

Sweet Surrender, Arabesque (Washington, DC), 1998.

Island Promise, Arabesque (Washington, DC), 1998.

Sudden Love, Arabesque (Washington, DC), 1999.

A Forever Passion, Arabesque (Washington, DC), 2000.

The Business of Love, Arabesque (Washington, DC), 2000.

Know by Heart, Arabesque (Washington, DC), 2001.

Love on the Run, Arabesque (Washington, DC), 2001.

(With Niqui Stanhope and Kim Louise) Seasons of Love, Arabesque (Washington, DC), 2002.

Dangerous Memories, Arabesque (Washington, DC), 2002.

Saving Grace, Arabesque (Washington, DC), 2003.

High Stakes, Arabesque (Washington, DC), 2004.

A Class Apart, Arabesque (Washington, DC), 2004.

Contributor to Politopics, http://www.politopics.com; also author of screenplays.

SIDELIGHTS: Angela Winters has become a prolific author of African-American-themed romance novels; she writes about two books a year while also working full-time as a diversity consultant to a major corporation. She has been writing since she read Louise Fitzhugh's children's book Harriet the Spy at age eleven, but, as she explained in an online interview for Romance in Color, the hard part about becoming a published author "was allowing myself to share what I write. It used to be so personal that I would never even think of sharing it with anyone, let alone letting it be published for people I didn't even know. It took me a while to allow myself to put my heart out there like that."

Many of Winters's books are romantic suspense novels, including Sudden Love. Renee Shepherd, the book's heroine, is a published author who is used to getting e-mails from readers—although they're not usually frantic ones like the one she now confronts, from a woman who fears she will be killed to cover up fraud at her workplace. Renee replies to the woman that she cannot help her, and suggests simply going to the police. Then Renee discovers that the woman is a coworker of her sister, Michelle. More properly, was a coworker; the woman is now dead of an apparent suicide. Renee, feeling guilty about not having helped her e-mail correspondent, deeply suspicious of the circumstances surrounding the woman's "suicide," and fearing for her own sister's safety, begins to investigate. Her chief suspect is the organization's director, Evan Brooks, a handsome man with whom Renee begins to fall in love against her better judgment.

In Sudden Love, "Winters has written a compelling romantic suspense with a few twists that even the most advanced literary sleuth won't anticipate," Cheryl Ferguson wrote in a review for Romantic Times.com. A Library Journal contributor also praised the book, particularly the "nicely detailed interactions between sisters."

A Forever Passion is also built around a mystery: namely, who wants to prevent protagonist Sydney Tanner from completing her genealogical research into the wealthy and powerful Hart family so much that he or she is willing to kill her? Sydney has no particular attachment to the project or the family in question—that of her classmate Gabrielle "Bree" Hart—when she begins; it is simply a way to earn some much-needed money and complete a requirement for her M.B.A. program. However, she quickly becomes attached to the family's golden boy, Congressman Marcus Hart. "The chemistry between the two main characters is strong and believable," Gwendolyn Osborne commented on the Romance Reader Web site; "Despite the differences in their backgrounds, Sydney and Marcus both know the pain of living within their parents' expectations—both positive and negative." To Romance in Color online reviewer Melanie Schuster, "The most compelling aspect of the book" were the "brief, poignant glimpses of Sydney's horrible childhood," scenes that create a "flawless depiction of a lifetime of emotional deprivation that makes Sydney into the determined woman we meet in A Forever Passion."

Like A Forever Passion, A Class Apart also features a romance that spans socioeconomic lines. In this case, though, it is the heroine who comes from a privileged background. Sepia Davis, a best-selling romance novelist, is the daughter of an upper-class Washington, D.C.-area family. Doing research for her new series of novels, which feature a female detective officer, brings Davis into contact with Officer Paul Healy. He is a hard-working, blue-collar cop with no taste for baby-sitting rich authors, but he finds his job becoming much tougher when Sepia sees a shooting and Paul is forced to protect her life from a murderer who wants no witnesses. Of course, as they are forced to work together, they also begin to fall in love. Booklist reviewer Maria Hatton termed A Class Apart a "contemporary twist on a classic theme of love versus social status."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 1, 2003, Maria Hatton, review of High Stakes, p. 654; June 1, 2004, Maria Hatton, review of A Class Apart, p. 1712.

Library Journal, May 15, 1999, review of Sudden Love, p. 83.

Publishers Weekly, July 10, 2000, review of The Business of Love, p. 49.

ONLINE

Angela Winters Home Page, http://www.tlt.com/authors/anwinters.htm (March 3, 2005).

Romance in Color Web site, http://www.romanceincolor.com/ (February 23, 2002), "Author of the Month: Angela Winters"; Melanie Schuster, review of A Forever Passion.

Romance Reader Web site, http://www.theromancereader.com/ (March 3, 2005), Gwendolyn Osborne, review of A Forever Passion.

RomanticTimes.com, http://www.romantictimes.com/ (March 3, 2005), Cheryl Ferguson, review of Sudden Love.