Joan Johnston is the top-ten New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of 62 historical and contemporary novels and novellas with more than 15 million copies of her books in print in 19 languages in 25 countries. Joan has won numerous writing awards including Colorado Romance Writers Writer of the Year, best novel (twice) from the Georgia Romance Writers and a RITA nomination for best short contemporary novel. Joan has written for Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Harlequin and her current publisher, Penguin Random House, and worked with agents Irene Goodman, Richard Curtis, Denise Marcil, Al Zuckerman, Robert Gottlieb, and Katie Kotchman.

Joan left her job as an Associate Professor at the University of Miami to write full-time. Joan has a B.A. in Theater Arts from Jacksonville University, Jacksonville, Florida, an M.A. in Theatre from the University of Illinois in Urbana, and a J.D. from the University of Texas at Austin School of Law. She worked as a director of theatre, drama critic, newspaper editor, college professor, and attorney at both Hunton & Williams in Richmond, VA, and Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Miami, FL on her way to becoming a full-time writer.

In order to research her novels, Joan spent six weeks at a cattle station in Australia, traveled to Tahiti, Moorea, and Bora Bora, spent three weeks in Viet Nam, two summers in London, and the fall in Rome, took a course in tracking (humans and animals) from a Deputy Sheriff in the Big Bend, and had lunch with a lot of Texas Rangers and FBI guys.
Joan has had season tickets for the Super Bowl 50 Champion Denver Broncos, plays tennis, and hikes in the nearby Flatirons and Rocky Mountains. Joan now lives in North Carolina.