Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, July 31, 1994                   TAG: 9408020040
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO +X NO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium

ROMANCE NOVELS A SECOND CAREER FOR CAREER WOMEN

Strip away those cool facades and expose a steamy common ground - second careers full of hammering heartbeats, glittering eyes, tearful confrontations, whispered confessions, candlelit bedchambers. And happy endings, always happy endings.

They're romance writers, and they've sold millions of books. This weekend, they're in Manhattan for the Romance Writers of America convention.

``The first convention I went to, I saw a notice up on the board for a lawyers' breakfast,'' said Kristin Hannah, a lawyer who has written four romance novels. ``I thought there would be at least one other lawyer besides me. But there were 12.''

A 1994 survey of 1,000 romance writers found that half have other professional careers, topped by teaching, editing and journalism.

Susan Wiggs, a Harvard-educated math teacher, has written 13 romance novels. Angela Benson is having her first novel, ``Bands of Gold,'' published this year; the heroine - like Benson - is an engineer.

Sandra Kitt, a librarian at the Hayden Planetarium, uses the world of science and life in New York City as backdrops for her novels. ``An Innocent Man'' featured a NASA engineer; ``Someone's Baby'' was a love story about a cop and a woman who works in a shelter.

Christina Skye holds a Ph.D. in Chinese literature and specializes in eighth-century classical poetry. She wrote several nonfiction books about China before writing six romance novels.

``I try and bring the same research skills and love of historical fact to romance writing,'' said Skye, a pseudonym for Roberta Helmer Stalberg. ``I take what I do very seriously. I think we all do.''

Skye's ``East of Forever,'' set in the early 1800s in England, featured a heroine raised in China, Chessy Cameron; a rakish hero, Lord Anthony Morland; and a treasure hunt for an ancient Chinese book.

``Publishers Weekly called the plot improbable,'' she said. ``The irony is, it's based on historical fact.''

There's also plenty of the torrid prose required in any romance novel.

``In a trice she was on her back, with her arms caught firmly above her head,'' Skye writes. ``Tony's eyes were glittering. `You like to live dangerously, woman.' `Very dangerously, my lord.' Her tongue slid suggestively across her full lower lip.''

Those who have had other careers say the discipline they developed in their first profession proves useful in writing. Typically, they set aside several hours every day to write, and they approach their new vocation systematically - reading dozens of books, taking classes, joining writers' groups. They study the market to figure out what niche their stories might fit into - historical, contemporary, action.