Mary Burchell Writer
Ida Cook (born 24 August 1904 in Sunderland, England - d. 22 December 1986) was a British campaigner for Jewish refugees and a romance novelist as Mary Burchell.Ida Cook and her sister Mary Louise Cook (1901–1991) rescued Jews from the Nazis during the 1930s. The sisters helped 29 people escape, funded mainly by Ida's writing. In 1965, the Cook sisters were honored as Righteous Gentiles by the Yad Vashem Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority in Israel.Between 1936 and 1985, Ida Cook wrote 112 romance novels as Mary Burchell for Mills & Boon (many of which were later republished by Harlequin). She helped to found, and was the second president of the Romantic Novelists' Association from 1966 to 1986. She wrote her autobiography in 1950, We Followed Our Stars, later re-edited and expanded as Safe Passage, which is currently in print.