Santa Montefiore

Santa Montefiore (; born 2 February 1970) is a British author.

Early life

Santa Montefiore was born Santa Palmer-Tomkinson on 2 February 1970 in Winchester. Her parents are Charles Palmer-Tomkinson, formerly High Sheriff of Hampshire, and Patricia Palmer-Tomkinson (née Dawson), of Anglo-Argentine background. Her father, and other members of her family, represented Great Britain in skiing at Olympic level. The Palmer-Tomkinson family are substantial land-owners in Hampshire and Leicestershire.

Her sister, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, was known as a socialite and charity patron.

Santa Montefiore said that growing up on the family farm gave her an "idyllic ''Swallows and Amazons'' childhood". She also describes her upbringing as "sheltered, Sloaney". She was educated at the Hanford School from the age of eight to twelve. She then attended Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset, where, in the sixth form, she became Head of her house (a role of responsibility similar to a prefect) and later Vice Head of School. She studied Spanish and Italian at Exeter University.

Career

Prior to publishing any novels, she worked in London, first in public relations for the outfitters Swaine Adeney and later for the jeweller Theo Fennell. She also worked as a shop assistant in Farmacia Santa Maria Novella, the perfumery, and in events for Ralph Lauren.

She sent her first manuscript to several literary agents, using a pen name in order to distance herself from her sister. Only one agent, Jo Frank of A P Watt, expressed an interest, but this led to a bidding war between several publishers, with Hodder & Stoughton giving her a six-figure advance. Montefiore has published at least one novel a year since 2001. Four of her books are set in Argentina, where she spent 1989 as a gap year teaching English. Her books have been characterised as "beach-read blockbusters", selling over six million copies in 25 translations.

She counts as her literary influences ''The Count of Monte Cristo'' by Alexandre Dumas; ''House of Mirth'' by Edith Wharton; Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Mary Wesley, Eckhart Tolle, and Daphne du Maurier. Isabel Allende is important to her too.

She has co-written with her husband a series of children's books called ''The Royal Rabbits of London'', which is published by Simon & Schuster. 20th Century Fox have bought the movie rights and are in the early stages of adapting the series for the big screen.

Personal life

Montefiore is married to the writer and historian Simon Sebag Montefiore. They were brought together by the historian Andrew Roberts, who thought "they would be absolutely perfect for each other because they were the only two people he knew who could remember the words to ''Evita'' off by heart". She says of their marriage:

Sebag and I do bring out the best in each other. I wouldn’t have written if not for him and he might not have written books either, as he was a ladies' man, always chasing girls, but now his home life is stable and sorted. We write in the same house, in separate offices and he helps me with plots. I think you have to be a team. Laughter is everything. Mr Darcy would have been so boring to live with – you don’t want to live with someone who is smouldering all the time.

The couple are friends with King Charles III and Camilla, Queen consort of the United Kingdom, who attended their wedding. Santa Montefiore is a friend of Tiggy Legge-Bourke and of Queen Máxima of the Netherlands.''The Spectator'' column by Simon Sebag Montefiore, 9 FEBRUARY 2002, Page 9. "I was lucky enough to be invited, with thousands of others, to the wedding, because my wife, Santa, was friends with Maxima long ago...."

She converted to Judaism before the marriage. The wedding was held at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St John's Wood, London, with which her husband's family has been associated for generations.

The Montefiores have two children, Lily and Sasha.

Works

*''Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree'' (2001)
*''The Butterfly Box'' (2002)
*''The Forget-me-not Sonata'' (2003)
*''The Swallow and the Hummingbird'' (2004)
*''The Last Voyage of the Valentina'' (2005)
*''The Gypsy Madonna'' (2006)
*''Sea of Lost Love'' (2007)
*''The French Gardener'' (2008)
*''The Italian Matchmaker'' (2009)
*''The Affair'' (2010)
*''The House by the Sea'' (2011)
*''The Summer House'' (2012)
*''Secrets of the Lighthouse'' (2013)
*''A Mother's Love'' (2013)
*''The Beekeeper's Daughter'' (2014)
*''Songs of Love and War'' (2015) (The first of ''The Deverill Chronicles'')
*''Daughters of Castle Deverill'' (2016) (The second of ''The Deverill Chronicles'')
*''Last Secret of the Deverills'' (2017) (The third of ''The Deverill Chronicles'')
*''The Temptation of Gracie'' (2018)
*''The Secret Hours'' (2019)
*''Here and Now'' (2020)
*''Flappy Entertains'' (2021)
*''The Distant Shores'' (2021) (The fourth of ''The Deverill Chronicles'')

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Montefiore, Santa
1970 births
Living people
Writers from Winchester
Converts to Judaism
British Jews
People educated at Hanford School
People educated at Sherborne Girls
Alumni of the University of Exeter
English Jewish writers
21st-century English novelists
English socialites
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