Mavis Cheek

Mavis Cheek was born and grew up in Wimbledon. She began her working life at Editions Alecto, the contemporary art publishers. She then attended Hillcroft College for Women from where she graduated in Arts. After her daughter Bella was born, she began her writing career in earnest; journalism and travel writing at first, then short stories, and eventually, in 1988, her comedy-of-manners novel Pause Between Acts, which won the She/John Menzies First Novel Prize. Her fifteen novels include Mrs Fytton's Country Life, Janice Gentle Gets Sexy, The Lovers of Pound Hill, and Amenable Women (her paean of praise for Queen Anna of Cleves and how she bamboozled Henry VIII) - described in the Times as 'a brilliantly funny, warm, intelligent read'. She now lives and writes back in London having fled the delights of the English countryside.