User:Fatjonathan/sandbox/Rebecca Daniels

Rebecca Daniels (born Ann Marie Wakefield) is an American author of contemporary romance novels. She wrote 14 novels between 1991 and 2003, all of which were published Harlequin, the world’s leading publisher of books for women. While most of her novels were set in the United States, usually in locations throughout California, the subjects she chose to write about where widely diverse. She wrote about members of law enforcement, lawyers, Native American Shaman, women waking up from comas, carpenters and much more. Rebecca retired to California’s Penn Valley.

Early life
Rebecca Daniels was born in Lancing, Michigan, to parents Edgar Raymond Wakefield and Bernice Mary Teff. She was the youngest of three siblings, Gary, John and Mary Wakefield. Daniels was very young when Edgar moved the family to Ontario, California. Rebecca remembers the truck the family rented to move across country and drew pictures of it many times when she was a little girl, remembering the journey. The first house they moved into was relatively small. However, within just a few years, the family moved into a larger house on East Deodar Street. Edgar was always concerned the house was too expensive, but never had a problem making the mortgage payments. Strawberries grew in the backyard. Their next door neighbor was related to painter Jackson Polk.

Edgar’s experience owning a John Deere dealership back east made him a natural fit for the automotive industry that was thriving in Southern California in the late 1950’s. He worked at a Chevrolet dealership and received steep discounts on cars purchased from the lot. As a result, the family got a new car every year. His children also always drove new cars.

Early adulthood
Rebecca graduated from Chaffey High School in 1968. She accelerated at typing. Her literary talents went largely unnoticed until she attended Chaffey College, where she quickly established herself in the local music scene as a singer/songwriter. Rebecca worked part time at a Mexican restaurant, The Cactus Patch. It was there that she met one of her first bandmates Rocky Sanchez, whose parents were the owners of the restaurant. Other notable musicians she often jammed with included Alan O’Day and John Harrelson.

Early career
Rebecca’s older sister was the first to introduce her to women’s fiction while she was on vacation in Santa Barbara, CA. “I was at my sister's house, sitting by the pool and trying without much success to get interest in the book I'd brought from home. Everything seemed to distract me — the dog, the kids, the seagulls.” She does not remember what book it was that she was trying to get interested in. “Finally, my sister plucked the book from my hands and told me she was going to give me something I wouldn't be able to put down.”

Rebecca returned home after the trip with a suitcase full of romance novels from her sister. She feverishly read through them within just a few weeks. As each week passed the continued reading less for her own entertainment and more for study. It was not long before she realized the desire to make her own mark in this genre.

The family transformed a spare bedroom in the house into an office. Rebecca started writing on an old electric typewriter the family had laying around the house. She was able to use it to type a draft of a novel, but needed something more sophisticated for printing a draft that was presentable to publishers. For this, she borrowed a more advanced word processor from a family friend, which she used to type the final draft. The novel was never published, but even before it had been rejected by publishers Rebecca was already halfway into her second novel.

Realizing that writing was not going to be just a hobby for her, Rebecca invested in her own Smith Corona word processor. The machine became infamous in the family because it would print an entire row of text at one time, making a chattering sound that could be heard throughout the house. Members of the family could always tell if Rebecca was having a good or bad day writing based on the frequency of that chattering sound.

Her second novel, while it was also unpublished, got the attention of a publisher at Harlequin. She told Rebecca the novel was not something they were looking for, but that she wanted to see more of Rebecca’s writing. With her foot now in the door, Rebecca began working feverishly on a third novel. The result was L.A. Heat. Harlequin bought the novel and Rebecca received her first advance from writing. However, they had several changes that were required. The changes being too onerous to manage from her now old word processor, Rebecca purchased a personal computer. The computer was an IBM clone which allowed her to use for the first time the Word Perfect software. More significantly, the computer allowed her to recline in her father’s old easy chair, which sat in the corner of her office, and type with the keyboard on her lap (the position she was most comfortable writing).

L.A. Heat was published in 1991. Her second novel, L.A. Midnight, a spinoff of her first, was published a year later. Rebecca would go on to publish a total of 14 novels that were distributed worldwide in several different languages.

Retirement
Rebecca is retired and lives with her husband in Lake Wildwood, CA. She is an enthusiastic chef and makes her own limoncello. She has four boys and two grandchildren.