Nicholas Sparks (born 1965) is one of the world’s most popular romance novelists, with book sales totaling over 115 million copies worldwide and each of his 23 novels becoming a New York Times bestseller. His work has been translated into more than 50 languages, and 11 of his novels have been adapted for film.

His first novel, The Notebook (1996), is one of his most renowned works. This marked the inception of a prolific career that includes popular works such as Message in a Bottle (1999), A Walk to Remember (1999), The Lucky One (2008), and The Choice (2007), among many others. Sparks’s achievements extend beyond the written page, as numerous film adaptations of his novels, including The Choice, The Longest Ride, and The Notebook, have collectively amassed over three quarters of a billion dollars in worldwide gross. Sparks produced several of these adaptations. He is known for incorporating universal themes of love, destiny, and the impact of choices into his novels. His storytelling often features relatable characters facing personal challenges, and his narratives frequently explore the emotional depths of human relationships.

Many of Sparks’s novels contain elements drawn from the details of his personal life. Though he was born in Nebraska and moved around as a child, as an adult, he settled in North Carolina, the place in which many of his novels are set.