Mary Burchell

Ida Cook (b. 24 August 1904 in Sunderland, England - d. 22 December 1986) was a British campaigner for Jewish refugees and a romance novelist novelist as Mary Burchell.

Ida Cook and her sister Mary Louise Cook (1901–1991) rescued Jews from the Nazis during the 1930s. The sisters helped 29 people escape, funded mainly by Ida's writing. In 1965, the Cook sisters were honored as Righteous Gentiles by the Yad Vashem Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority in Israel.

Since 1936, Ida Cook wrote more than 125 romance novels as Mary Burchell for Mills & Boon (reedited by Harlequin). She helped to found, and was the second president of the Romantic Novelists' Association from 1966 to 1986. She wrote her autobiography in 1950, We Followed Our Stars, later re-edited and expanded as Safe Passage, which is currently in print.