Kate Fenton was born in Oldham, brought up in Cheshire and read PPE at St Hilda's College, Oxford.  On leaving, she worked as a pianist in an end-of-pier variety show, as a researcher in the House of Commons, and (briefly) bass guitarist in a medics' revue on the Edinburgh Fringe.  Cleaning the ladies' loo in this venue (part of the deal) she found on the floor an ad for jobs in the BBC and thereby her future career. 

Kate was a features and documentaries producer for Radio Wales and Radio 4, until she employed the late actor Ian Carmichael to read some short stories and went on to marry him.   On settling with him in the North York Moors near Whitby, she wrote six novels, contemporary romantic comedies, mostly set in Yorkshire.  Lions and Liquorice was serialised on R4 Woman's Hour, and all her novels have sold internationally. 

After a break from writing - filled with spaniel-training, church organ-playing, school governing, knitting, gardening and any number of other displacement activities - Kate has returned to writing a new novel, The Time Of Her Life which was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2020.  She is happily re-married, and still lives in the North York Moors.  

“Kate Fenton writes romantic comedy spiced with intrigue and farce which zings along.”  Elizabeth Buchan