Meet the author

Ida Hills

Veteran romance writer Ida Hills celebrated her eightieth birthday by penning her tenth novel, Mahalo, My Love. She calls it her "love child," as her previous publishers had dissuaded her from veering from her usual romantic suspense books. Ida wrote this book strictly for her own enjoyment.

Ida calls travel her "writer’s catnip." For twenty-two years, the Air Force determined the destination for Ida, her navigator husband, Wes (who she’s been married to now for 59 years) and their three children. Since they retired to Santa Cruz, California, her writing has been the impetus for her travels. Ida’s previous romances have been set in Thailand, Israel, Russia, Korea, China, Fiji, Granada, Mexico and a cargo-passenger ship around South America. All were researched on location.

Hawai`i is the place to which she keeps returning. Ida and Wes first visited the Islands in 1958 for an international orchid-growers convention. Later, they stopped in Hawai`i traveling to and from Korea. Both of Ida’s daughters were married in Honolulu. At her younger daughter’s wedding, the groom’s grandmother told Ida about her father who jumped ship from a British merchantman in Honolulu harbor in the 1870s. He sent back to England for his fianceé. The idea for Ida’s historical romance novel, Mahalo, My Love, began to germinate.

Ida is a charter member of the Romance Writers of America and is a member of their published authors network. She attended the RWA’s first conference in Houston in 1980, the second aboard the Queen Mary, the next in Hawai`i and a number of others. She was present for the formation of Romantic Times Magazine and was part of the "Romantic Times Love Train" which traveled from New York to Los Angeles. She did not travel on the train, but saw it off in New York and met it in L.A. Ida is still active with the Monterey Bay chapter of RWA and recently gave a talk at their December meeting.

Ida Hills has written many wonderful romances. Her titles include A Love to Remember (Dell, Thorndike and two anthologies); Shalom, My Love (Dell, Thorndike, Denmark and Norway); Heartbreaker Mine (a Harlequin American Romance launch book, released also in the U.K., Canada, Australia, the Philippines)( Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark); Know When to Run (Kappa Books, Inc.). As "Wendy Hills," she wrote for Avalon Books: Kisses Beneath an Oriental Moon (as "Mysry Sare" in Norway and Sweden editions); Edge of Paradise; Moon Over Mexico; Kisses and Caviar. As "Vida Devlin," she wrote Dangerous Waters (Kappa Books).

Ida’s other loves are flowers and redwood trees–although they aren’t always compatible. Before she became immersed in writing romances, Ida was an accredited flower show judge and flower arranger. During the 1970s she wrote a freelance column for the Santa Cruz Sentinel. She grew orchids until she and Wes retired to their Santa Cruz home, which has several hundred-fifty foot redwoods surrounding it. The last of her orchids were lost when her greenhouse was demolished by the Loma Prieta earthquake ten years ago. She still has a half-dozen cymbidiums and a phalaenopsis in the house.

Ida has become an advocate for redwoods, spending a considerable amount of time at public hearings defending old-growth stands. She is a member of the Sierra Club Timber Task Force and the Save the Redwoods League.

Asked if she plans another book, she said that a new romance would require too much research. Then with a little laugh, she admitted she wouldn’t mind completing some projects that she never finished. Stay tuned to this website for further developments!

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