Lucinda Riley

Lucinda Kate Riley (Edmonds; 16 February 1965 – 11 June 2021) was a Northern Irish author of popular historical fiction, formerly an actress and ballet dancer.

Lucinda Edmonds was born in Lisburn and spent the first few years of her life in the village of Drumbeg near Belfast before moving to England.

At age 14, she enrolled in the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London to study theatre and ballet.

At 16, she got her first major television role in the BBC adaptation of The Story of the Treasure Seekers, followed shortly afterwards by a guest role in Auf Wiedersehen Pet.

She remained a working actress for the next seven years.

Her acting career was interrupted by a long bout of mononucleosis.

From 1988 to 1998, she was married to actor Owen Whittaker, with whom she had two children.

This caused her to turn to writing, and her first novel Lovers and Players was published in 1992.

From 2000 until her death, she was married to Stephen Riley, with whom she also had two children, as well as three stepchildren.

She took a break from writing, returning to it in 2010; her subsequent novels were published under her married name.

In 2014, Riley published the Seven Sisters, the first novel of a series of the same name.

This novel series made her a bestselling author, especially in Europe.

The novels have been translated into several languages and have sold a combined total of over 30 million books.

In 2016, producer Raffaella De Laurentiis purchased the television rights to this series.

In 2019, Riley revealed to Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang that she had oesophageal cancer.

She continued to work, producing five novels during the four years of her illness, but was unable to complete the planned final eighth novel in her Seven Sisters series before her death on 11 June 2021.

After her death, her son, Harry Whittaker, completed the final book, Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt, which was posthumously released in May 2023.

In May 2022, her stepdaughter Olivia Riley, who was a personal assistant and publishing executive for Lucinda Riley Ltd, was killed after being hit by a car while walking her dogs in London.