About:
Jenny Barden
I’ve had a love of history and adventure ever since an encounter in infancy with a suit of armour at Tamworth Castle.
But my early dream of becoming a knight was frustrated by my parents' insistence that I have an education. I studied Fine Art at the University of Reading, then switched to Law and obtained an LLB. My academic qualifications as a solicitor were completed at the College of Law, Guildford. I began my practical training in my home town, Burton upon Trent (where I was articled to a cousin of W.H. Auden), and finished in the City of London where I worked as a solicitor specializing in company commercial law – for a while…
Four children followed in rapid succession, I also continued to paint and haunt art galleries. That led to my first efforts at writing (I have a bottom drawer novel about Carel Fabritius, a student of Rembrandt and colleague of Vermeer, who died tragically when the Delft gunpowder arsenal blew up).
Travels in South and Central America, coupled with an undimmed fascination with the Age of Discovery, led eventually to the writing of Mistress of the Sea, my first novel to be published. My writing underwent something of a hiatus when my husband retired to a farm in Dorset and the demands of caring for cows, horses and sheep took over. More recently I have moved to West Sussex and become immersed once again in the Tudor past, in particular the role of women in the court of Queen Elizabeth, especially those at the fringes of recorded history. This has lead me to write my latest novel about a confidante of the Queen at the time of the Spanish Armada which is part love story and part psychological thriller.
Thank you for taking an interest. If you'd like to know more then please get in touch!
With Bernard Cornwell at the launch of The Lost Duchess
The banner at the top of the page shows Diana Gabaldon with me at a conference of the Historical Novel Society
