Mary S. Lovell

Mary S Lovell Mary was an accountant and company director for 20 years before becoming a writer. She wrote her first book in 1980 at the age of 40, while recovering from a broken back suffered in a riding accident. She returned to accountancy but during the following 5 years she also published two further non-fiction books that were written in her spare time. When an airplane she owned with her first husband was used in the film 'Out of Africa', she first heard of the famous aviatrix, Beryl Markham, and decided to fly to Kenya to meet her. Subsequently, she decided to write Markham‘s biography and this book, 'Straight on Till Morning', researched and written in under a year, became an immediate international bestseller and was on the NYT Best seller list for 12 weeks. Mary decided to retire from accountancy at this point to write full time, and her second biography was another best-seller: 'Amelia Earhart - The Sound of Wings', which was made into a major motion picture. Most of the books she has written since then have made the non-fiction best-seller lists, and 'The Mitford Girls' (titled 'The Sisters' in the USA) a biography of the celebrated Mitford sisters, first published in September 2001 (paperback August 2002) was another international best-seller and is presently a TV series project. She followed that with 'Bess of Hardwick', in 2005, set in the turbulent years of Tudor England and like 'The Mitford Girls', this is still selling well in paperback. In her latest books, 'The Churchills', and 'The Riviera Set', Mary returns to the 19th and 20th centuries and the fascinating lives of the rich and famous. Six of her books are optioned for films/TV series. Mary is particularly noted for her intensive research methods and all her non-fiction books are extensively annotated. She feels strongly that "biography is history" and deplores biographies in which contentious statements are made about a subject without any verifiable attribution. She also dislikes the increasing trend for biographies which set out to destroy reputations. She regards herself a storyteller, rather than a literary writer: "Everybody enjoys a good fast-paced story and that is what I try to write, only my stories are fact, not fiction. For me there is always an added frisson of enjoyment when I know that what I'm reading about actually occurred, and is not simply a figment of someone's imagination." She has lectured on her writing in many countries as well as appearing at literary festivals from Cheltenham to Adelaide among dozens of others. She enjoys aviation, sailing, all equestrian sports, travel - especially in the deserts of the Middle East and the Caribbean - and books. Her personal favourite books for relaxation are multi-volume family sagas. She lives in Hampshire, England.