Eloisa James is the pseudonym used by Mary Bly, who was born in 1962. She is a professor of Shakespeare at Fordham University and writes popular romance novels set in the Regency and Georgian eras under her pen name. These novels are published in 30 countries and have sold about 7 million copies worldwide. She also wrote a bestselling book titled Paris in Love, which describes a year her family spent in France. Mary Bly is the daughter of poet Robert Bly and short-story writer Carol Bly.

Early life and education

Mary Bly was born in Minnesota in 1962. She is the daughter of Robert Bly, who won the American Book Award for poetry, and Carol Bly, who wrote short stories. Mary inspired her mother to write an essay called "The Maternity Wing, Madison, Minnesota," which was included in a book called Imagining Home: Writing From the Midwest. Her godfather, James Wright, wrote a poem about her, which he later added to his book of poems that won a Pulitzer Prize. Mary has three younger brothers and sisters: Bridget, Noah, and Micah.

The Bly family did not have a television, but they owned more than 5,000 books. Robert often read books aloud to his children, introducing them to classic stories like Beowulf. Even as a young child, Mary was interested in romance stories. She wrote and performed plays using her siblings as actors and asked adults in the family to pay to watch them (many poets visited her father often). Her plays always ended with a romantic scene, partly because her sister wanted to be a princess. During a snowstorm, she created a puppet show with lights and also included a romantic ending. After finding romance novels by Georgette Heyer in the library, Mary asked her father if she could read one romance novel for every classic novel she read.

After finishing college at Harvard University, Mary earned a degree called an M.Phil. from Oxford University and a Ph.D. in Renaissance studies from Yale University.

Career

She is a tenured professor teaching about William Shakespeare at Fordham University in New York City. She has held several roles, including director of graduate studies in the English Department, head of Fordham's Creative Writing Program, and associate dean of Fordham College at Lincoln Center from 2018 to 2019. Her research focuses on humorous wordplay found in English boys' plays written between 1600 and 1608. She has published an academic book with Oxford University Press and an academic article on 17th-century drama in Publications of the Modern Language Association of America.

While studying at the University of Virginia on a humanities fellowship, Bly began writing romance novels. Her second career started when her husband wanted to delay having a second child until their student loans were paid off. To help achieve this, Bly followed her parents' example and wrote a story to send to a publisher. Two publishers bid for her novel, Potent Pleasures, which earned her an advance that fully paid off her student loans. At the time, she was an untenured professor preparing to publish her first academic work. To keep her academic and writing careers separate, she chose to publish her fiction under the name Eloisa James. She has written 30 novels, with 27 of them becoming New York Times bestsellers. Her books have been translated into 28 languages and published in 30 countries. They have also become hardcover bestsellers in the Netherlands and Spain.

Bly's first three novels, the Pleasures Trilogy, were published in hardcover by Dell, a plan she did not fully support. After their release, she bought out the remainder of her contract and moved to Avon, where her books are now published in mass-market paperback format. She believed that marketing her early works as hardcovers was not the most successful approach and hoped for greater success with paperbacks.

Her novels are inspired in part by her academic work. Plays or facts discovered during her research often spark ideas for fictional stories. Her novels are set during England's Regency period (1811–1820) or Georgian period (1740–1837). They often include references to Shakespeare, 16th-century poetry, or other details she found while studying. Because she spends much of her day teaching or reading early British English, she believes the language in her novels is more authentic. Although she tried writing a contemporary romance, she decided not to finish the manuscript because she found it difficult to write in a modern style.

The characters in Bly's novels often avoid typical romance novel stereotypes. Her stories focus on historical accuracy and characters who care about religion. Heroines are usually surrounded by close female friends or sisters. Most of her novels are part of a trilogy or a series of four books that follow a group of connected characters. These stories explore the relationships between characters, including the hero and heroine.

In 2018, Apple Books listed her novel Too Wilde to Wed among its 10 Best Books of 2018.

For many years, Bly's writing career remained a secret. She wore contact lenses instead of her usual glasses when attending events as Eloisa James. After her first New York Times bestseller in 2005, she realized her readers enjoyed her writing regardless of the genre. She also understood that keeping her identity hidden suggested she was ashamed of her work and readers. On February 16, 2005, she revealed her dual identity to her colleagues at a faculty meeting and shared copies of her novels with them. After publicly acknowledging her writing career, she wrote an article defending the romance genre for The New York Times. She was invited to speak at the National Book Festival in 2012.

Bly credits her success in both careers to being "very, very organized." She often writes 20 pages at a time, as she does not have time to write every day. On days when she is at home, she schedules time to work on both her fiction and academic projects. When possible, she avoids working when her children are at home. She usually does not teach during the summer, giving her more time to focus on writing both academic and fiction works.

Personal life

Bly’s father and stepmother, Ruth, support her work as a romance writer. Her mother, Carol Bly, also helped by creating a "nifty crossword puzzle" for the Eloisa James website.

Bly’s mother passed away from ovarian cancer. She worked with her publisher, Avon, which is a part of HarperCollins, to become a spokesperson. Along with six other Avon Romance authors, she participated in a program called K.I.S.S. and TEAL to help people learn about the early signs of ovarian cancer.

Bly is married to Alessandro Vettori, an Italian knight (or cavaliere) who teaches Italian at Rutgers University. They met on a blind date while Bly was at Yale. The couple has one son and one daughter. The family lives mainly in New York but spends summers in Tuscany visiting Alessandro’s mother and sister.