Julie Garwood was raised in Kansas City, Missouri, the sixth of seven children in a large Irish family. She has six sisters: Sharon, Mary Kathleen, Marilyn, Mary, Mary Colette "Cookie", Joanne and Monica, and one brother: Tom. After having a tonsillectomy at age six, Garwood was a sickly child for years. Because she missed so much school, she did not learn to read as the other children her age did. She was eleven before her mother realized that other children had been doing her homework, and that Garwood was simply unable to read. A math teacher, Sister Elizabeth, devoted the entire summer that year to teaching Garwood how to read, and how to enjoy the stories she was reading. This teacher had such an impact on Garwood's life that she named her daughter Elizabeth.

While studying to be an R.N., Garwood took a Russian history course and became intrigued by history, choosing to pursue a double major in history and nursing. A professor, impressed by the quality of her essays, convinced Garwood to take a year off of school to write. The result was a children's book, What's a Girl to Do?, and her first historical novel, Gentle Warrior.

She married young with Gerry Garwood, they have three children: Gerry Jr., Bryan Michael and Elizabeth, the family resides in Leawood, Kansas. Although Garwood enjoyed her writing, she was not intending to pursue a career as an author. As a young wife and mother she took several freelance writing jobs, and wrote longer stories to amuse herself. After her youngest child started school, Garwood began attending local writers' conferences, where she soon met an agent. The agent sold both her children's book and her historical novel, and soon the publisher requested more historical romances.

Garwood's novels are particularly known for the quirkiness of her heroines, who tend to have an ability to get lost anywhere, clumsiness, and a "charming ability to obfuscate and change the direction of conversations to the consternation, frustration, but eventual acceptance of the other party." She is not afraid to tackle difficult issues, and one of her books deals with spousal abuse. Her novels are very historically accurate, and Garwood has been known to scour the library at the University of Kansas to find three sources confirming a fact before she includes it in one of her books.

In fifteen years of writing, by 2000 Garwood had penned 15 New York Times Bestsellers with over 30 million copies of her books in print. Despite her success in the historical romance genre, Garwood ventured into a new genre and began writing contemporary romantic suspense novels. Like her historicals, these contemporaries still focus on family relationships, whether between blood relatives or groups of friends who have styled themselves as a family.

Her first contemporary offering, Heartbreaker, has been optioned for film and was serialized in Cosmopolitan magazine.

Garwood admits that she does not read romance novels, primarily so that she does not have to worry about unintentional plagiarism. Instead, she enjoys reading general fiction and mystery novels, but looks forward to the day she retires so that she can catch up on the romance novels written by other authors.

As Emily Chase

The Girls of Canby Hall series

• 14.What's a Girl to Do? 1985

(Under the pseudonym Emily Chase, Julie Garwood wrote one Young Adult novel).

As Julie Garwood

Single Novels

• Gentle Warrior 10/1985
• A Girl Named Summer 03/1986
• Rebellious Desire 06/1986
• Honor's Splendour 12/1987
• The Prize 08/1991
• Saving Grace 12/1993
• Prince Charming 06/1994

Crown's Spies Series

1. The Lion's Lady 12/1988
2. Guardian Angel 05/1990
3. The Gift 01/1991
4. Castles 07/1993

Lairds' Brides Series

1. The Bride 07/1989
2. The Wedding 04/1996

Highlands' Lairds Series

1. The Secret 05/1992
2. Ransom 09/1999
3. Shadow Music 12/2007

Clayborne of Rosehill Series

1. For The Roses 02/1995
2. One Pink Rose 06/1997 (and in "The Clayborne Brides")
3. One White Rose 07/1997 (and in "The Clayborne Brides")
4. One Red Rose 08/1997 (and in "The Clayborne Brides")
5. Come The Spring 12/1997

Buchanan-Renard-MacKenna

1. Heartbreaker 08/2000
2. Mercy 09/2001
3. Killjoy 09/2002
4. Murder List 08/2004
5. Slow Burn 08/2005
6. Shadow Dance 12/2006
7. Fire and Ice 12/2008
8. Sizzle 12/2009