Kay Thorpe (born 1935) is a British author of 77 romance novels, now totalling over 21 million copies sold. She published her novels in Mills & Boon in 1968. All her novels have also been published under Harlequin Enterprises Limited. Over a period of four decades, she has produced a body of sensuous work that investigates heritage, family, class and love. Her forte is to encode the opposing reading within the classic Harlequin plot. A synopsis of the author that accompanies her publications notes that she researched the market for romance fiction before electing to write in this category. Her first book published in North America established her reputation as a gifted storyteller. She has a strong vital writing style.
As her career graph began in the late 1960s, Kay Thorpe, along with Charlotte Lamb and others, was one of the first writers to explore the boundaries of sexual desire, her novels often reflecting the forefront of the "sexual revolution" of the 1970s. As such she was also one of the first to create a modern romantic heroine: independent, imperfect, and perfectly capable of initiating a sexual or romantic relationship. However, under Kay Thorpe's expert analysis, the modern romantic heroine had to re-evaluate her age-old perceptions of what constituted love and marriage: she had to accept love unconditionally without looking for security in marriage.
Biography Kay Thorpe was born in 1935 in England. After leaving school, she tried a variety of jobs, including dental nursing and a spell in the Women's Royal Air Force.
In 1960, Kay was married to Tony, and five years later they had a son John. Now, she and her husband live on the outskirts of Chesterfield in Derbyshire.
Her very first completed manuscript accepted, The Last of the Mallorys, was published in 1968. Since then she has written another 76 books.
A word about the author
Sometimes Kay Thorpe finds she has become two different people: the writer at her happiest when involved in the world of books and authors; and the housewife, turning her hands to the everyday needs of husband and son. Once in a while, she finds it difficult to step from one role to the other. She likes cooking, for instance, but she finds that it can be an irritating interruption when she's preoccupied with work on a novel, so the quality of her efforts in the kitchen tend to be a little erratic. She says, "As my husband once remarked, my writing gives life a fascinating element of uncertainty: one day a perfect coq au vin, the next day a couple of burned chops!"
Luckily Kay has daily professional help with her housework, and that leaves her time to indulge in her hobbies. Like many other Harlequin authors, she admits to being a voracious consumer of books, a quality she shares with her readers. She likes music and horseback riding, which she does in the countryside near her home. But her favorite hobby is travel - especially to places that will make good settings for her books.
Book notes I
Places and people
Kay Thorpe's stories are rich in details covering a diverse background.
Unlike Flora Kidd and Robyn Donald, who showcase Scotland and New Zealand in their stories, Kay Thorpe gives her readers a taste for a myriad of locations. By and large, her stories are based on three locations, namely England, Canada and Africa. There are also stories based in Spain, Italy, South America, Greek Islands, Caribbean Islands, South Pacific Islands and Australia.
Her main characters always stand by their British heritage. As a result, stories set outside England have an underlying subplot that explore how a newcomer from Britain can come to accept making a home for herself with one of the long-time British descendants settled in Canada or South Africa. For example, Safari South (1976), Timber Boss (1978) and Copper Lake (1981).
In Storm Passage (1977) and Time out of Mind (1987), there is mention of how islands in the South Pacific and in the Caribbean came to be under private ownership by a British descendant.
In Timber Boss (1978), there are references as to how Scottish settlers made the Canadian region of Nova Scotia their new home.
Keith in Safari South (1976) appreciates the expansiveness of South Africa and the promising future the country offers him. While Keir in Temporary Marriage (1981) founds his fortunes as an engineering whiz in Sydney, Australia halfway around the world from his native English village.
British engineers working in remote locations of hot and steamy Sierra Leone, the deserts of Libya, or the outback of Tanzania make up the scenery for The Iron Man (1974), The Man from Tripoli (1979), and No Passing Fancy (1980).
In The Man at Kambala (1973) readers experience Masai Mara Reserve in Kenya. In Safari South (1976), they are taken to the Kruger National Park.
The class division in British society provides the conflict for the love affair in Temporary Marriage (1981). Mention of public vs private schools, manner born, Irish vs English blood, cockney vs upper-class accents that indicate subtleties in class background make their way into her stories from the very first The Last of the Mallorys (1968) to other stories down the years such as No Passing Fancy (1980), A Man of Means (1983), and Win or Lose (1986).
After man-woman relation, father-daughter and brother-sister relations take second place in many of her stories. While The Man at Kambala (1973) and No Passing Fancy (1980) have affectionate fathers indulging their daughters, the fathers in A Man of Means (1983) and The Land of the Incas (1983) prove self-serving.
In Safari South (1976), Keith and Karen rekindle their sibling affections after years of being apart. While in Opportune Marriage (1969), the young woman realizes with a pang that her even younger brother is coming into his own and doesn't need her as before.
As Lisa looks ahead to her stay in the family home as Kyle's wife in Time Out of Mind (1987), she considers the difficult personality of Kyle's mother as well as his brother. Kyle reassures Lisa that both mother and son can find alternative residences to stay. But Kyle's sentiment shifts in favor of his sister, which prompts him to mock Lisa, "Will Madalyn be a problem?".
Kay Thorpe also takes a stab at the role of the mother, especially when mothers are relatively young compared to their daughters. In Never Trust a Stranger (1983) a forty-something lead actress Emily worries that casting her daughter Gemma in the same Broadway production with herself may bring out the advances in her age. The mother-daughter relationship becomes more poignant when Gemma accuses Logan of being a past lover of her mother. Although Logan denies the charge, there is no denying that the mother in Floodtide (1981) solicits sex from her son-in-law, which he declines albeit politely giving her the benefit of the doubt as needing for herself a full-blooded affair. Somewhere in her books Kay Thorpe throws in that British men think nothing much of their middle-aged wives, who still yearn for the love and romance of their not so far away youth.
In The Iron Man (1974), Dave says that all wives are kept women. Dave's statement notwithstanding, Kay brings to life predatory women who elect to live off men. In This Side of Paradise (1979), Marie travels to a Caribbean resort with the purpose of securing for herself a moneyed man. In Bitter Alliance (1978) and in Never Trust a Stranger (1983), there are women who marry for money. Nonetheless, these women, promiscuous as their case is, are strong individuals who play by their own rules. A charismatic Ailsa in Full Circle (1978), knowing that her looks will not support her in the long run, has a Swiss bank account to fall back on for her olden days.
Neil Davids, in This Side of Paradise (1979), says that there are women and there are women, some you use and some you cherish. If Kay showcases two types of women, one who is trading in security for love, and the other who is trading in love for money, she also brings about two competing urges in men, one who is looking for a life partner, and the other who is ready to walk away from a woman without a backward glance. As Liam in Bitter Alliance (1978), and Cal in Wilderness Trail (1978) grapple with movements in their own lives that test them with these two faces of women, Logan in Never Trust a Stranger (1983) must decide if marriage is meant for him. Although the romance series is designed to win the hearts of women, it is up to Kay's heroines to convince and to win over the hearts of these men so to propel them to make a choice in their favor.
Theater is a backdrop Kay Thorpe takes up in several of her novels over ensuing decades. For example, Devon Interlude (1968), Curtain Call (1971), Never Trust a Stranger (1983) and The Land of Illusion (1988). In Never Trust a Stranger (1983), it is Logan's use of the word role that clues in would-be actress Gemma to who he is, a theater producer.
In Full Circle (1978), Sara, in an unsteady galley kitchen, dishes out a savory coq au vin albeit with too much wine, which still draws Steve's complement. This story along with others such as Not Wanted on Voyage (1972), and Storm Passage (1977) opens a window to life aboard oceangoing watercraft, be it in a ketch powered by sails or in an ice-breaking whaling ship.
She also uses the sport of horse show jumping in Rising Star (1969), the circus world in Sawdust Season (1972), Corporate takeover in Dividing Line (1979), the international game of snooker in Win or Lose (1986), professional writing in This Side of Paradise (1979) and Skin Deep (1989), professional sculpting in Floodtide (1981), restoration of historical homes in Opportune Marriage (1969).
Interwoven in the love stories, there are these varied interests shared by the main protagonists that lend a richness to the quality of the plots and educate the readers no less.
Love and marriage
Kay Thorpe explores many factors contributing to successful male-female intimate relationship, love and finally marriage and her writer's voice comes across strongly in each of her novels.
Her narratives give the hero many advantages over the heroine, a trait found in stories of other renowned series novelists such as Flora Kidd, Charlotte Lamb, Robyn Donald just to name a few. However, the harlequin readers anticipate resistance from their heroine until the man confesses his undying love for her. An emotionally secured heroine can, in turn, confess her love for the man.
Kay Thorpe's women, on the other hand, confess their love to men without first securing for themselves any safety net, emotional or otherwise. In such one-sided confessions, the women commit to staying with these men, willing to pay any price and to go with them just anywhere. For example, The Iron Man (1974), Bitter Alliance (1978), and Temporary Marriage (1981).
In Olive Island (1972) Nikos Alexandros explains to Nickey that she will never be happy if the man does not dominate her. Nickey comes back smartly saying that British women are not as accommodating as Greek women. Jaime in Bitter Alliance (1978), on the other hand, admits to the dominant streak in Liam. But in the wake of her first admission comes a second one that Liam would love her like no other man can. This admission does not readily surface in Kay's other heroines. Therefore, the primary struggle is to fight against it. Ramon observes in Apple in Eden (1973) that a woman constantly baits the man, riling him on purpose; this is all but an attempt to meet up with her match in a man, who then wins her submission.