Pat Warren is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 of contemporary romance novels under her own name and the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 Patricia Cox.

At age 16, Warren began writing a column for the Akron Beacon Journal

Akron Beacon Journal

The Akron Beacon Journal is a four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning morning newspaper in Akron, Ohio, United States, and published by Black Press Ltd.. It is the sole daily newspaper in Akron and is distributed throughout Northeast Ohio. The paper places a strong emphasis on local news and business...

. As an adult, she wrote articles about marriage and motherhood for the Detroit News. In 1986, she sold a novel to Silhouette Books

Harlequin Enterprises Ltd

Harlequin Enterprises Limited is a Toronto, Ontario-based company that is a publisher of series romance and women's fiction. Owned by the Torstar Corporation, the largest newspaper publisher in Canada, the company publishes approximately 120 new titles each month in 29 different languages in 107...

. Two years later, in 1988, she won the inaugural Desert Rose Award, given by the Phoenix Desert Rose chapter of the Romance Writers of America

Romance Writers of America

Romance Writers of America is a national non-profit genre writers association. It provides networking and support to individuals seriously pursuing a career in romance fiction and supports top authors such as Nora Roberts and Judith McNaught.-History:...

.

Warren has published novels in various genres, including contemporary romance, romantic suspense, mystery

Mystery fiction

Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...

, and mainstream. Several reached the Waldenbooks

Waldenbooks

Waldenbooks , operated by the Walden Book Company, Inc., was an American shopping mall-based bookstore chain and a subsidiary of Borders Group. The chain also ran a video game and software chain under the name Waldensoftware as well as a children's edutainment chain under Walden Kids...

 and B. Dalton

B. Dalton

B. Dalton Bookseller was an American retail bookstore chain founded in 1966 by the Dayton's department store chain. Located primarily in shopping malls, B. Dalton competed primarily with Waldenbooks, and operated 798 stores at its peak...

bestseller lists. As of 2007, more than 3.5 million copies of her novels were in print worldwide.