Lucilla Andrews 1919 - 2006

I have to confess that I'd never even heard of 'hospital fiction' as a genre. But Lucilla Andrews, who died last week, was, it seems, the leading exponent. There's an obituary by Julia Langodon in The Guardian.

Lucilla Andrews, who also wrote under the names of Diana Gordon and Joanna Marcus, was a founder member of the Romantic Novelists Association (which honoured her shortly before her death with a lifetime achievement award). Her first novel was published in 1954 and her last in 1996. She is regarded by today's contemporary authors of romantic fiction as having set a standard, and many of her books now sell for hundreds of pounds in the second-hand trade.