That annual number rose over the next few years by the late 1990s, she had published over 160 novels, most of them romances, others historical novels and romantic thrillers, achieving over 200 million sales worldwide. By the late 1970s, she was an established and successful author, publishing as many as twelve novels a year with Mills and Boon. Her first historical and romantic novels were published by Robert Hale and serialised in Woman's Weekly Digest. In 1973 she signed Follow a Stranger as her most famous pseudonym: Charlotte Lamb, but later she used several other pseudonyms, among them Sheila Lancaster, Victoria Woolf and Laura Hardy. She began her writing career as her married name Sheila Holland and as her maiden name Sheila Coates. In between raising her five children, she wrote many more novels. She had been living on the island since 1977 with her husband and four of her five children.Ī voracious reader, she wrote her first book in three days with three children underfoot. She died suddenly on ( )8 October 2000 in her baronial-style home 'Crogga' on the Isle of Man.

Her husband prompted her to begin writing in the early 1970s.

They had five children, including a set of twins: – Michael Holland, Sarah Holland, Jane Holland, Charlotte Holland and David Holland. In 1959, she married Richard Holland, then a Fleet Street journalist, later a sub-editor of The Times and a classical biographer. She worked as a typist-secretary at the Bank of England in London, from 1954 to 1956, and then as a junior researcher for the BBC at Broadcasting House from the 1956 to 1958. She attended the Ursuline Convent for Girls in Ilford, Essex. As a child, she was moved from relative to relative to escape the bombings of World War II. They had five children, including a set of twins: – Michael Holland, Sarah Holland, Jane Holland, Charlotte Holland and David Holland.īiography Personal life īorn Sheila Ann Mary Coates on 22 December 1937 at Dagenham, Essex, England. She signed her novels with her married or maiden names – Sheila Holland, Sheila Coates – and under the pseudonyms Sheila Lancaster, Victoria Wolf and Laura Hardy. Sheila Holland, née Sheila Ann Mary Coates ( ( )22 December 1937 in Dagenham, Essex, England – ( )8 October 2000 in Isle of Man) was best known under the pseudonym Charlotte Lamb as a prolific romantic novelist.

Dark master charlotte lamb