About Wendy

I was born in Yorkshire, read English Literature at Girton College, Cambridge and spent fourteen years as a journalist on the Sunday Times, Mail on Sunday, Harpers & Queen and Tatler before becoming a novelist. My experiences on glossy magazines, and ghost-writing a Sunday Times column for socialite Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, were the inspiration for my debut, the bestselling Simply Divine. I loved my time on Fleet Street and it helped trigger my passion for the absurd and the frankly hilarious (see Zeb Spaw tab).

I then pivoted to historical fiction with the bestselling The Governess, about Marion ‘Crawfie’ Crawford, the young Scottish teacher who brought fun and normality to the childhood of Elizabeth II. My next novel, The Duchess, explored the incredible rise of Wallis Simpson whilst its follow-up The Princess traced the young Diana Spencer’s extraordinary path to the altar. Both Wallis and Diana had troubled backgrounds, and then, like Crawfie, ran into more trouble with the royal family and suffered reputational damage. My Windsor Trilogy examines the others involved and what the real truth might be.

My latest novel is The Queen’s Painter, a Tudor revenge drama about artist Hans Holbein, the ultimate insider at the blood-spattered court of Henry VIII. He knew and painted everyone who was anyone, but what did he think about them? What did he hear and see, and most particularly what was his view about his early friend and patron, the dazzling, ill-fated Anne Boleyn? Find out, read my novel! The Queen’s Painter is published by Mountain Lion Press on June 18 2026.

Outside of writing, I regularly review popular fiction for the Daily Mail, have sat on literary judging panels and am on the board of the Bradford Literary Festival. I live in the Peak District.

The photos on this page show me with two of my all-time literary heroines and inspirations, Dames Hilary Mantel and Jilly Cooper, now both sadly gone from us. The third is of me as Hon Doctor of Letters courtesy of the University of Derby.