Today, it’s a pleasure to introduce you to the glamorous Rosemary Janz, and know that she is the Sri Lankan ‘burgher girl next door ‘ who made it big, as yet another American author, no less - (albeit under the name Rosemary Rogers)!
“Rogers is considered to be one of the founders of the modern historical romance, and many of today's writers cite her writing as one of their biggest influences”, (source- Wickipedia).
Not bad for the girl from Panadura - (she now lives in California).
Rosemary’s parents were well-to -do Burghers, and she lived in a household attended by the usual ‘Ceylonese’ (as it was then known), army of servants. Her well educated parents introduced her to English literature and she ‘began her writing career’, so to speak, at the ripe old age of eight! She continuing through her teenage years.
Rosemary’s married life was as turbulent as the plots of her novels. After university, (University of Ceylon), she married the well known Ceylonese athlete and rugger player, Summa Navaratnam, but they separated and she moved to London in 1960 with her two daughters. She then met Leroy Rogers, an American, by whom she had two sons, but this marriage too, failed after eight years, and she was on her own, supporting her four children on her typist’s salary. By then her parents too had joined the household. Her third marriage in 1984, (to a man 20 years younger than herself), was short lived.
Her fairy tale rise to best- seller status, (catalysed by her own hard work), began when her teenage daughter discovered a manuscript of a novel that Rosemary had written as a child. She re- wrote it no less than 24 times, before she was satisfied. That novel- Sweet Savage Love went to the top of the best seller lists in America, and her next, Dark Fires, sold two million copies, within three months! With success after success, her fourth novel, Wicked loving lies, sold three million copies within a month. Now a millionaire, many of her heroines follow the same ‘rags to riches’ path as Rosemary’s own life.
Rosemary Roger’s is not a writer of ‘love stories’. Although classified as an author of ‘Romances’, “her novels are often full of violence, and the heroines are usually raped several times, sometimes by the heroes, and sometimes by other men” (source- “The wicked loving life of Rosemary Rogers- Mary Murphy”). Rosemary writes of “Flickering torch lights and wine forced between her lips ... (The sentences which follow are too raunchy for this publication) – have a look, go get the book!