Regina Maria Roche had great success as a popular Irish novelist and leading Minerva Press author, using her own name and often listing her previous titles. She also published a couple of novellas, though most of the novellas attributed to her are probably not hers. She first appeared in print in 1789, but reached her highest rate of productivity in the 1820s under pressure of financial troubles.

Regina Maria Roche writes emotionally-charged stories in which heroines are unjustly persecuted (often by unworthy mother-figures and other villainous women), and sensational incidents, mistaken identity, deep-laid plots, and gothic settings abound. But real issues relating to women's lives, and to the state of Ireland, are also addressed, albeit in overblown form.