The Idea of You

Robinne Lee is a successful American writer, actor, and producer. Born in New York in 1974 to Jamaican parents of African, Chinese, and British descent, she was educated at Yale University and Columbia Law School. Lee has previously worked for Elle Magazine’s youth culture title in New York and Paris, and she ran a music management company for a number of years. Her first major acting credit was in the 1997 independent film, Hav Plenty. She then went on to act in the hit films National Security, Deliver Us From Eva, Hitch, and Seven Pounds.

Lee now lives in Los Angeles and has travelled widely for both work and leisure, inspiring the varied locations in her novel. Embedded in the publishing, music, and film industries, Lee was able to draw on insider experience to inform the setting and themes of her novel—including fame, its benefits and drawbacks, the globalized media, and the role and treatment of women in the public eye. Lee regularly speaks and writes on the roles of women and actors of color in the film and music industry and is a public advocate.

Lee has also spoken of the importance of women’s literature—including in the romance genre—and the ways women’s literature is still diminished by society when compared to fiction written for and/or by men: “We take