Georgette Heyer

Georgette Heyer (1902 - 1974) (pronounced "hair") is a historical romance novelist. Her first published work, inspired by the Baroness Orczy, was The Black Moth, and was written while she was seventeen to amuse her convalescent brother. She became an increasingly popular writer, supporting her family through her work, and created her most popular work when she started setting her novels in Regency England, a period which she made uniquely her own. Novels from this period include The Unknown Ajax, Frederica, and The Black Sheep. She did a tremendous amount of research on this period, but glossed over the bleaker realities of life when she wrote.

She also wrote mysteries set contemporaneously in England between World War I and World War II which are classic country house murder mysteries. (See also whodunit.)