Novelist Lucy Cavendish
Lucy Cavendish is a founder member of The Contemporary Women Writers' Club and a prolific writer and journalist. She was born in the Home Counties. After school, she spent a year teaching in Kenya and began a love affair with Africa that is still on-going now. In fact, she has lived all over the world from Argentina to Zimbabwe, New York to Sydney. It was her endless thirst for adventure that won her a first award in journalism as Cosmopolitan's Young Travel Writer of the Year. Since then, she has gone on to carve a very successful career in journalism writing for the Times, the Telegraph, the Guardian, the Daily Mail and many women's magazines. She writes a column for Stella magazine for the Sunday Telegraph about her life as a Country Mother of Four. A few years ago, she was asked to take her experiences as a mother, a wife, a partner and an ex-partner to write a fictitous book. Her heroine, Samantha Smythe, is loosely based on herself but, as the Samantha Smythe trilogy grew, so her characters and story lines became increasingly less associated with her life. Her fourth novel, the Broken-Hearted Wives Club, is out next year.
On February 18th this year, Lucy's new short novel Jack and Jill will be published by Penguin. It has already received great acclaim and will be part of a new promotions campaign in conjunction with Galaxy and their Book Awards. She will be recording the first chapter that will be downloadable on the BBC Skillswise website and she will be reading from th ebook and talking about it at 7.30pm on 3rd March, World Book Day at Watford Library. There will be a podcast all about Jack and Jill on the Quick Reads website http://www.quickreads.org.uk/
She has also branched out in to the Young Adult market and is writing a book called Girlfriend about Cat, a child carer, whose life is turned upside down by the arrival of a compelling new girl at school.
Lucy Cavendish is also a member of the influential Contemporary Womens Writer's Group and has contributed two stories to their first collection The Leap Year. A second collection of stories will be out this spring. She is also a founder member of Queen Bee press.
She lives in Oxfordshire with her partner, their four children, two dogs, two cats, a horse, a pony, two goldfish and four chickens. Lucy is thinking of getting a goat.
Lost and Found by Lucy Cavendish, Penguin
Samantha Smythe has a busy summer ahead of her with her three active young sons. Her au pair is more interested in the contents of the fridge than in the children, her husband is off drinking champagne for breakfast in London, and the famous footballer who has moved into the village seems to think Samantha is the answer to his problems. Then, out of the blue, Samantha’s childhood friend Naomi turns up on the doorstep with her daughter in tow. It’s been years since Samantha and Naomi have seen each other and it’s not long before they fall back into their old ways. Samantha would do anything for Naomi but when she’s left to look after her little girl as well has her own chaotic family, she has to ask herself what she is prepared to do to save a friendship. Everyone has a long lost friend but what happens when the past comes back and turns your life upside down? Can things ever go back to the way they were?
'An acutely observed comic portrait of modern motherhood.'
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Samantha Smythe's Modern Family Journal, Lucy Cavendish, Penguin
Let me introduce you to the Smythe household...There's me, Samantha, my husband John the Second, and our two children Bennie and Jamie. And then there's my eldest son Edward from my first marriage. I love my family to bits but even I stagger a bit when I see the mess they create. Bennie, who is two, can't seem to use a potty. Jamie, only eight months, eats nothing but butternut squash and Edward spends most of his time watching Scooby Doo and drawing pictures on his willy. Every now and then I lose my cool and start shouting like a mad woman and John has to take me upstairs and calm me down. But, despite my worry that a non-nuclear family may never be a 'real' family, everything was fine until last summer when it got a whole lot more complicated.My ex-husband John the First turned up at our house for the first time in three years. My sister's marriage broke up and my best friend Dougie did nothing but drink wine and moan about this life. Edward, of course, thought it was marvellous that he had two dads living with him. I on-the-other-hand, began to feel I was slowly disappearing out of sight. Suddenly our chaotic but loving home was teetering on the verge of collapse.
'What Helen Fielding was to singletons, so Lucy Cavendish is to equally wine-sozzled, stained and chaotic mothers ... Even those, like me, who have never given birth will cry with laughter.' Liz Jones
A Storm in a Teacup
Samantha Smythe has to look after the children, run the house, cook dinner, clear up, be good to her husband, entertain friends, and still find the energy to perform her conjugal rights.She’s beginning to feel invisible, undervalued and fed up. When the chance to stay in a gorgeous chocolate box of a holiday cottage beckons she grasps it with both hands and with a car packed full of luggage and fractious children she heads for the Devon coast. But with no Sky TV and swimming pool and intermittently soggy weather can the calm and happy holiday she’s been hoping for be achieved? Samantha is sure that their lovely beach break is not supposed to be about sulks and rows and everyone wanting to do different things.Where are the cosy cream teas and the rockpooling?And why is her husband so keen to spend most of his holiday in London (where she secretly wants to be…)?Is it possible that he’s finding his relaxation far closer to home?
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Coming Soon!
Jack and Jill
Jack and Jill. Brother and sister. Closer than close – an unusual relationship especially because nobody has ever heard Jack speak. Nobody, that is, apart from Jill. Jack and Jill communicate in a secret language that nobody can understand. So what happens when Jill, Jack's best friend, sister and mouthpiece to the outside world, has a terrible accident? Could this be the trigger that finally moves Jack to speak? Or is it just too late for both of them?
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