Best-Selling Macomber Leaves Harlequin for Ballantine Bantam Dell

Debbie Macomber said, "I am delighted and grateful to find a home with the energetic, inspired, and extremely impressive team at Ballantine Bantam Dell. I'm looking forward to a new stage in my 28-year publishing career, full of fresh ideas and exciting opportunities to bring my stories to the widest possible audience, and to deepen my long-term relationships with my loyal readers."

"I am a longtime Debbie Macomber reader who is a tremendous admirer of her storytelling gifts, so it is a dream opportunity for me to work with her," said Jennifer Hershey. "My colleagues and I are excited to be working with a writer so engaged by her fans and deeply connected by their shared personal values."

Libby McGuire observed, "Reading a Debbie Macomber novel is an enormously enjoyable and enriching experience for me and for millions of others, and we are as excited about involving her devoted readers with her new Ballantine books as we are highly motivated to build upon her remarkable success to reach a large new audience for them. This will be a long, fulfilling partnership among Debbie, Ballantine Bantam Dell, our booksellers, and her readers."

Last year, Macomber's novel Mrs. Miracle was adapted as a Hallmark Channel television movie starring Doris Roberts, and a second one, currently in production, is scheduled to air on Hallmark this Thanksgiving weekend.

The Random House Publishing Group is a division of Random House, the world's largest trade-book publisher, whose parent company is Bertelsmann AG.