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Sally Beauman was born in Devon and read English Literature at Girton College Cambridge, graduating in 1966 after which she lived in America for three years traveling extensively including time in the southern states which provided much background for her first book Destiny. After working for the New York Magazine she returned to England and worked as a critic and reporter for various newspapers and magazines and became the youngest editor of Queen magazine.
After the birth of her son she returned to full-time writing completing the definitive history of the Royal Shakespeare Company n 1982 (her husband is the actor Alan Howard) and then wrote Destiny which has been described as ‘a study of a materialist woman in a materialist world’. Destiny was followed by Dark Angel the study of the decline of a Victorian family and then three linked thrillers Lovers and Lies, Danger Zone and Sextet followed by Rebecca’s Tale a novel that revisited and re-imagined Daphne Du Maurier’s Manderly.
Her most recent book is The Landscape of Love which is set initially in 1967 and told through the journal of 13-year old Maizie Mortland who lives with her two sisters, her mother and grandfather in an old Suffolk abbey. During the summer of 1967 they have their portrait painted and in 1991 the now famous portrait is shown in London. The portrait inspires Daniel Nunn, who as a young boy in 1967 was idolized by Maizie, to return to the Abbey to find out what happened during the idyllic summer.
Lisa Alladine has written ‘Sticking to what she does best Beauman drags her readers into a breathless melodrama. Madness, suicide, illegitimacy, more infidelities,than an episode of Footballers Wives, terminal illness and even murder and that’s not including the Medieval nuns….But is she a serious writer? Who Cares? She is an enjoyable one.’
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