Jane Porter adamantly believes women deserve happy endings.

"I'm surprised that someone sitting on a bus reading Dean Koontz books, where the women are mutilated, is more socially acceptable in a way than someone reading a romance novel," said Porter, herself a writer of these romantic finales.

Why did this grounded, well-educated woman choose romance novels, the lighter-than-air genre considered the literary equivalent of cotton candy? Before you judge, consider all the factors that went into the equation.

It took a while for Porter to get her own happy — well, if not ending, at least middle — right here in Hawai'i.

Things didn't look so rosy when she was 15, after her father died.

"I've seen so many tragic things," said Porter, who said the family saw "domestic abuse" after her mother remarried.

Porter began her writing career penning Harlequin romances. Her first, "The Italian Groom," came out in 2001. It featured an Italian winery owner and a feisty single mother-to-be.

Porter's family had traveled Europe when she was a girl; her university professor father taught for the military. The only English-language books the impressionable teen could land her hands on were used romance novels, set in places she'd visited, such as Vienna and England.

She came home to Central California thinking how fun it would be to someday write happy books set in exotic places.

Porter's life has taken several turns, not always pleasant, including the loss of her dad, family upheaval involving a stepfather, and a divorce from her paraplegic husband.

There were also paths of distinction: Traveling the world. Her first career after college was in sales and marketing, but she chucked that to became a teacher, like her parents.

Then, when Porter began studying for her master's in English, she decided to write commercial fiction. And commercial it has been — she's sold more than 4 million books, translated into at least 20 languages, including Arabic and Korean.

Bleak endings still aren't for her.

"Once you've gone through such terrible violence ... " Porter began. Then she paused, and added, "It nearly destroyed my family."

She tried telling adults in her hometown about it, including a priest, hoping someone would step in. No one believed her, Porter said; they claimed she just missed her father or had a vivid imagination.

"That's why I'm so fierce about what I give to women," she said.

HER BIGGEST ISLAND FAN

Porter lives in the Seattle area. The 43-year-old raises her two sons, Ty, 8, and Jake, 12, in the manicured suburbs of Bellevue, where she's happy to dissect trends such as competitive motherhood.

Nowadays, she splits her time between her homes, one in Bellevue, and one on O'ahu, with about a fourth of the time in Kapahulu.

She has one big fan here.

"Jane's an absolutely wonderful person, very giving, very kind," says her boyfriend, surf-school owner Ty Gurney, of Honolulu. "... I think Hawai'i has made her a little more relaxed. She's very peaceful."

Porter is comfortable with her livelihood, and she considers herself a feminist.

"I don't think women are supposed to have needs," she said. "(You're supposed to be a) smart, successful woman who isn't too demanding, who puts others in front of herself.

"If I had a daughter, I'd tell her to take the good piece of the pie. No one else in the world will ever put you first. You walk right up to the counter and say, 'I want my turn.' "

Her next chick-lit book is titled "Alpha Mom," and it's a sequel to "Odd Mom Out," her current release.

'AND THERE HE WAS ... '

As for happy endings, Porter got one herself, right here on the sugar-sand shores of Waikiki.

It's a plot twist worthy of a Harlequin stamp: A little more than three years ago, Porter came to O'ahu for a week to write. Her children were spending spring break with their father, and she had just turned 40.

Even in hue-drenched Hawai'i, the outlook was pretty gray.

"I wondered, where did my soul go?" Porter recalled.

As she pounded away on her battery-powered AlphaSmart keyboard, creating her first foray into chick lit, "The Frog Prince" for 5 Spot, an imprint of Warner Books Inc., a new story kept unfurling in her mind.

"I was writing 'The Frog Prince,' and I needed to get it done," Porter said. "I didn't want to get ideas for a new book, but I just began to question so much."

She rarely looked up from her work, but one day, typing away by the pool, she heard someone call her son's name: Ty.

Instead of little boy Ty, however, there stood Ty Gurney, nine years her junior, who worked at the surf school fronting the Sheraton.

Yes, the romance novelist admits, it sounded just like something that might happen to one of her heroines, especially as she talks about her first view of Gurney's glistening tan and tattoo-rippled muscles.

"I'm a Harlequin writer, and there he was, in person!" Porter said.

A romance novelist never lets a good love story go to waste, so her next novel, "Flirting with Forty," was set in Hawai'i and the love interest, Kai, featured many of her now-boyfriend's attributes.

The relationship between her and Kai ... er, Ty ... eventually turned serious, and between love's satisfactions and Hawai'i's cleansing breaths, Porter said, she has begun to see colors again.

But there's more to this novelist than the elements of a good bodice-ripping. With a foot in both Microsoft-fueled Seattle and O'ahu, she's said she's learning all about balance.

"There's no way you can quantify success, no way to sell as many books as your publisher wants you to," she said. "... I've discovered so much more. I am so happy. I like me. It took me a long time to like me."