“Families are wonderful institution," he said. "I value mine more than I can possibly say. But each of us has an individual life to live, our own path to tread, our own destiny to forge. You can imagine, if you will, how my family wished to shelter and protect me and do my living for me so that I would never again know fear or pain or abandonment. Eventually I had to step clear of them-or I might have fallen into the temptation of allowing them to do just that.”

Welsh-Canadian novelist, historical romance

Mary Balogh is a Welsh-Canadian novelist, born and raised in Swansea, known for her historical romance. She moved to Canada in 1967 to begin a teaching career, later settling in Kipling, Saskatchewan, where she became a school principal. Her debut novel was published in 1985. Balogh writes historical fiction set in the Regency era, or more broadly in the Georgian period, and her work is rooted in that setting’s social codes, relationships, and changing manners.