Background and career
Jude Deveraux (born September 20, 1947; née Jude Gilliam) is an American author of historical romances. Deveraux has written more than 40 novels, many of which have been on The New York Times Best Seller list, including such titles as A Knight in Shining Armor and Remembrance; she has sold in excess of 50 million copies as of 2016. Deveraux appeared as herself in the 1987 romance novelist documentary Where the Heart Roams.
Known for her historical romances with storylines centered on strong, capable heroines, Deveraux has written stories set in several time periods, including post-Revolutionary America, nineteenth century Colorado, and nineteenth century New Mexico. Many of her books follow the Montgomery and Taggert families and contain recurring characters. She has written several time-travel romances, and her later novels have had a contemporary setting. Many of her more recent books feature paranormal storylines. In 2009, she was one of four authors who produced works for the debut of Vook, a company which produces "video books" by combining text, video and internet links into a single experience. Deveraux wrote A Girl From Summer Hill, a contemporary reimagining of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in 2016.
Deveraux was born in Fairdale, Kentucky, United States. She was married to Richard Sides from 1967 to 1969. In the late 1960s, she met Claude White, whom she began living with in 1970. They married in 1987 and divorced in 1991. In 1991, while on a tour of Egypt with White, she met Mohammed Montassir. They eventually married and had a son together, named Sam Alexander Montassir. Their son died in 2005, at the age of eight, when he was hit by a truck near their home in North Carolina.
In 1991, Deveraux first met psychic Rose Marks, whom she knew as "Joyce Michael". She initially visited Marks for a psychic reading, due to problems with her marriage to White and with infertility. The relationship strengthened after her son's death, and Marks isolated Deveraux from her friends and family. Marks offered her the ability to continue to contact her son as well as to save him from being "caught between heaven and hell". Over the course of 17 years, Marks extracted between 17 and 20 million dollars from Deveraux, leaving her with almost no money despite her lucrative writing career. Marks told Deveraux as well as other victims that their money and valuables were cursed by malign influence and needed to be given to her for "cleansing rituals" and that they would be returned; yet the items never were returned. She was found guilty of fraud in a trial in 2013, and lost an appeal of her sentence in 2016.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
