is an American author of over 225 romance novels. She writes as J. D. Robb, Jill March, and (in the U.K.) Sarah Hardesty.

She began to write during a blizzard in February 1979. Roberts states that with three feet of snow, a dwindling supply of chocolate, and no morning kindergarten for her two boys, she had little else to do. She fell in love with the writing process, and quickly produced six manuscripts which she submitted to Harlequin, the leading publisher of romance novels, but was repeatedly rejected. Roberts says,

I got the standard rejection for the first couple of tries, then my favorite rejection of all time. I received my manuscript back with a nice little note which said that my work showed promise, and the story had been very entertaining and well done. But that they already had their American writer. That would have been Janet Dailey.

Dailey would go on to be embroiled in a plagiarism scandal in which she eventually confessed to stealing some of Roberts' work.