Kayla Perrin is a USA Today and Essence bestselling author who divides her time between Miami and Toronto. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English and Sociology and a Bachelor of Education, having entertained the idea of becoming a teacher--but she always knew she wanted to be a writer. Teachers were being laid off in Toronto when Kayla graduated with her B. Ed. Frustrated, she used her time to pursue her life-long dream of becoming a published author and proved that dreams can come true! Indeed, not landing a teaching job was a blessing in disguise.

Since 1998, she has had 30 original releases hit the shelves and has written for a variety of publishers. Her recent releases are with St. Martin's Press, Harlequin, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster, but she's also had releases with Kensington Books, BET, Ballantine, and Genesis Press. She writes mainstream fiction, romance, romantic suspense, suspense, chick lit, erotica, and children's fiction.

In January 2003, Kayla's novel, SAY YOU NEED ME, was voted one of Romance Writers of America's Top Ten Favorite Books of the Year, nabbing the number 2 spot. In 2002, Kayla hit the Essence Bestseller List with her first mainstream novel, THE SISTERS OF THETA PHI KAPPA. In October 2002, she won a Career Achievement Award from Romantic Times Magazine for multicultural romance after having been published for only 4 short years. Also in October 2002, she won a Golden Leaf Award for her novel, IN AN INSTANT from the New Jersey Romance Writers chapter of Romance Writers of America.

In 2001, she received an Arts Acclaim Award for her writing from the city of Brampton, a suburb of Toronto. HOLIDAY OF LOVE, her December 2000 release, was a finalist for best multicultural romance of 2000 from Romantic Times Magazine. Kayla was also a finalist for a 2001 Gold Pen Award from the Black Writers Alliance for her February 2001 release, IF YOU WANT ME. Kayla's novel, SWEET HONESTY, was voted one of Romance Writers of America's Top 10 Favorite Books of 1999 and also optioned for a movie of the week by Black Entertainment Television!

Kayla has always been creative, and can't remember a time when she wasn't scribbling a story somewhere, or sketching a picture. After discovering that people actually earned money to write stories, at the age of thirteen she submitted her first fully illustrated children's book to Scholastic Publications, who sent her a letter saying that they were 'seriously considering' publishing her story. At age eighteen, Kayla's short story "THE MILLION DOLLAR SMILE," a story about a young girl whose friend dies of cancer, placed first in The Silver Quill Literary Association's short story contest. "It was the most exciting moment of my life at that point," Kayla says of the experience. As she grew older, she fell in love with drama, and performed in many stage plays as well as in television and film productions. MAKING CHANGE, a film in which Kayla had a starring role, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1995 and received rave reviews. Kayla has also worked as an assistant film editor for the National Film Board on the award winning documentary THEM THAT'S NOT directed by Christene Browne, and on Stephen William's short film VARIATIONS ON THE KEY TO LIFE.

While she has worked at various jobs, Kayla is most happy when writing. In 1996, she made a promise to herself to become published, and she fulfilled that promise when in April of that year, she sold her first romantic short story to JIVE magazine. Later in 1996 she sold three more short stories to Jive magazine, as well as her first novel, AGAIN, MY LOVE, a contemporary romance to Genesis Press, which was released in February, 1998. She has since sold ten stories to BET Books for their Pinnacle/Arabesque line. The first of these is a romantic suspense entitled EVERLASTING LOVE, which was released in July, 1998. Following that is her novella, "THE PERFECT FANTASY", which appears in the BET Valentine's Anthology, WINE AND ROSES in February '99. SWEET HONESTY, another romantic suspense, was released in April '99, followed by MIDNIGHT DREAMS in December '99. Her novella, "MATERNAL INSTINCTS", appeared in the Mother's Day Anthology called A VERY SPECIAL LOVE in May 2000. Her December 2000 release, HOLIDAY OF LOVE, is a Kwanzaa-themed mystery. In August 2001, Kayla's seventh release from BET Books hit the shelves, a romantic suspense called FLIRTING WITH DANGER. Her latest works for BET are linked by family ties, featuring the Montgomery cousins. IN AN INSTANT came out in June 2002, the follow up, IN A HEARTBEAT, was released in April 2003, and the highly anticipated third and final story, FOOL FOR LOVE hit the shelves in November 2003.

Always the type to try different things, Kayla soon moved beyond romance to write bigger mainstream stories.  Her first mainstream release was THE SISTERS OF THETA PHI KAPPA from St. Martin's Press, which came out in hardcover in October, 2001, and was re-released in trade paperback in October 2002. Essence Magazine says of this novel, "Novelist Kayla Perrin concocts a delicious cocktail with a lot of zing...Fans of the steamy eighties miniseries Lace will love this novel of secrets, lies and alibis."

In April 2004, her second mainstream hardcover was released, a generational saga dealing with mothers and daughters, called THE DELTA SISTERS.

In January 2005, HarperCollins released Kayla's GIMME AN O! to rave reviews, including ones from Publisher's Weekly and The Globe and Mail, and even the popular Entertainment Weekly magazine.

Kayla's latest creative turn came in 2005 when she signed a deal with Harlequin Enterprises to write three erotic novels for their SPICE line. GETTING EVEN, the story about three women who serve up some delicious revenge on the men who did them wrong, launched the SPICE line in May 2006. GETTING SOME came out in March 2007 (an erotic thriller), and OBSESSION, another erotic thriller, is due out in April 2008.

WE'LL NEVER TELL was Kayla's first fully-fledged suspense novel, and reviews everywhere have been fantastic.  She's excited about her new mystery series from HarperCollins, co-written with her friend Brenda Mott.

With romances, chick lit, suspense, mainstream fiction, and erotica, Kayla has something for everyone.  If you haven't read one of her books yet, hopefully you've been intrigued enough to pick one up!