Lisa Gregory Books in Order

Lisa Gregory is one of the pen names used by Candace Camp, the Texas-born romance writer behind dozens of historical and contemporary love stories. The Lisa Gregory books are especially tied to her earlier work, when she was building a career with sweeping settings, family pressure, dangerous secrets, and characters who have to fight hard for a fresh start.

Camp was born in Amarillo, Texas, on May 23, 1949, and grew up in a newspaper family. Her mother worked as a reporter, and her father was the business manager of the Amarillo newspaper. Storytelling was part of her life early on. She began writing down her own stories at about age ten, and has said writing was a private way to sort through thoughts she didn't always want to say aloud.

She was making up stories long before it became a job.

After studying at the University of Texas at Austin and West Texas State University, Camp became a secondary-school teacher in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. A move to North Carolina brought a job in a bank's trust department, then law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was a busy, practical path, but romance novels gave her another idea. While studying law, she decided to try writing one herself.

That first novel was Bonds of Love, a Civil War romance published in 1978 under the Lisa Gregory name. Camp has said law school taught her the discipline to finish it, even with a stack of course work waiting nearby. Once she sold the book, she left the legal profession and made writing her full-time work.

The early Lisa Gregory novels show how wide her interests could be. The Rainbow Season and The Rainbow Promise follow the Turner family in East Texas, where reputation, land, old grief, and community judgment all matter. Analise moves into the difficult aftermath of the Civil War, while Crystal Heart reaches back to the Revolutionary era. Before the Dawn brings wartime pressure to a World War II love story, and Sisters turns to the strains inside a successful girl group.

The settings change, but the questions often stay close to home.

Readers who pick up these books can expect big feelings and a strong pull toward family history. Camp often writes people carrying shame, secrets, or a past they can't easily escape. Her heroines may begin boxed in by class, marriage, money, or local gossip, then find room to make choices of their own. Her heroes are rarely simple fixes for those problems. Trust has to be earned, usually after a few hard conversations and plenty of trouble.

She also published as Kristin James and Sharon Stephens, while the Candace Camp name became closely associated with historical romance, including Regency stories and family-centered series. Across all those bylines, she has written more than seventy novels. The range is part of the fun, from frontier-rooted Texas stories to English aristocrats, wartime drama, and modern family conflict.

Camp lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband, Pete Hopcus. Their daughter, Anastasia Hopcus, is also a writer. For readers starting with Lisa Gregory, these earlier books offer a useful look at the roots of Camp's long-running interest in love stories shaped by place, pressure, and the family ties people can't quite leave behind.