Under her maiden name, Patricia Ponder, she wrote a murder mystery and a romantic suspense story.
Maxwell is a seventh generation Louisianan[4] of English, Irish, Welsh, Scots-German, French, and Indigenous descent.
[6] Through her mother, who belonged to a mail order book club, Maxwell was introduced at an early age to adult mysteries, westerns, historical novels, and romances.
She began writing one morning when she was 21,[4] attempting to describe a very vivid dream she'd had that was set in historical Scotland.
[7] After two years of struggling to find another niche, Maxwell was asked to write a proposal for an emerging genre, historical romance.
[7] Her first novel in this genre, Love's Wild Desire, became a New York Times Bestseller under the pseudonym Jennifer Blake (so that fans of her previous work would not be confused).