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Penny Vincenzi, born Penelope Hannaford, was a British bestselling author of historical fiction, contemporary women's fiction and non-fiction novels.

Born in Bournemouth, England, she launched her career as a junior secretary for Vogue magazine before proceeding to work at The Daily Mirror, and Tatler.

Penny later worked as a Fashion and Beauty Editor on magazines such as Woman’s Own, Nova and Honey, before rising to become a Deputy Editor of Options and Contributing Editor of Cosmopolitan.

Harboring ambitions to become a novelist, she made her debut in 1977 with the non-fiction title, The Compleat Liar.

At the time of her death, Penny was one of the most popular authors in the United Kingdom, with more than sixteen bestselling novels and 7 million copies of her books sold across the globe.

She died 25 February 2018, aged 78.

Penny was married to the late Paul Robert Vincenzi, and together they had four daughters.

More about Penny Vincenzi

Genres: Contemporary , Historical Fiction, Non-fiction, Women's Fiction

Born: 1939 / Died: 2018

United Kingdom

Website: https://www.pennyvincenzi.com/

Non Series

  • Old Sins (1989)
  • Wicked Pleasures (1992)
  • An Outrageous Affair (1993)
  • Another Woman (1994)
  • Forbidden Places (1995)
  • The Glimpses (1996)
  • The Dilemma (1996)
  • Windfall (1997)
  • Almost a Crime (1996)
  • Sheer Abandon (2003)
  • An Absolute Scandal (2007)
  • The Best of Times (2009)
  • More Than You Know (2011)
  • A Perfect Heritage (2014)
  • A Question of Trust (2017)

Collections

  1. Love In The Afternoon and Other Delights (2013)

Non-fiction

  1. The Compleat Liar (1977)
  2. There's One Born Every Minute: A Survival Guide for Parents (1984)
  3. Taking Stock: Over 75 Years of the Oxo Cube (1995)

Omnibus Books

  1. Two Great Novels: Another Woman, Forbidden Places (2003)
  2. Sheer Abandon / The Golden Cup / The Summer I Dared (2005)

Spoils of Time

  1. No Angel (2000)
  2. Something Dangerous (2001)
  3. Into Temptation (2002)

Detailed book overview

Non Series

Old Sins

POWER

Two clever, stylish and ambitious women are fighting for control of a multi-million cosmetics empire.

MYSTERY

What is the secret that lies behind its charming, ruthless creator, Julian Morell? And why, when he dies, does he leave half his forturne to a complete stranger?

GLAMOUR

Here are the designer interiors, the jewels, cars and to-die-for couture of the rich and the super-rich - the glittering, fabulous world Julian created for himself, and the women who loved him.

PASSION

And here is a love story - poignant, sexy, tempestuous - featuring a mother, a mistress, a wife and a daughter, all of whom are overshadowed by ... old sins.

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 1989
ISBN: 978-0099571582
Publisher: Random House UK
Wicked Pleasures

None of them are the children of Alexander, Earl of Caterham, who was married to their mother for almost twenty years. A family saga that takes the reader right from the 1950s to the end of the twentieth century, and set between the Hamptons summer homes of New York’s elite and the English countryside familiar to any fan of British period drama, Wicked Pleasures is a tale of the power and greed of the mega-rich, as the great banking business upon which the family’s fortunes are won and lost comes to the brink of ruin. Intense relationships, both old and new, are tested to the utmost in this grand and unputdownable summer read.

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 1992
ISBN: 978-0755332380
Publisher: Headline Review
An Outrageous Affair

A mysterious, tragic accident in the 1950s. An inexplicable suicide twenty years later. What was the strange link between the two—and Caroline Hunterton’s long-buried past? A secret which could not be kept forever, especially from her two daughters, Chloe and Fleur. Fate had separated the sisters in time and distance—but bound them in mutual hatred—until journalist Magnus Phillips decided to tell the story that would tear their lives apart.

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 1993
ISBN: 978-0755332373
Publisher: Headline Review
Another Woman

The night before her lavish wedding, Cressida Forrest went to bed serene and happy. By morning she had vanished—without apparent cause, and without a trace. Shocked, anxious, and uncomprehending, the two families face a long day of revelations, as a complex, fragile web of sexual, marital, and financial secrets is ripped apart by Cressida’s disappearance.

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 1994
ISBN: 978-0755332663
Publisher: Headline Review
Forbidden Places

It is the story of three women and one family. One is married and widowed within five years. She is free to start again. Or is she? The second has a perfect husband she thinks she loves. He becomes a grotesque parody of what he once was. Is that love real? The third becomes trapped in a nightmare marriage. Can the war free her?

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 1995
ISBN: 978-0755332649
Publisher: Headline Review
The Glimpses

James was a lucky man. He had a pretty,loving wife,three beautiful children,a good job with prospects,and a lovely house.So why was he unhappy? Why did he know that what he had, he didn't really want? He wanted something that he could only glimpse,tantalisingly just out of reach. And yet when he did reach them,when the glimpses became reality, James's life was turned upside down.

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 1996
ISBN: 978-1857997460
Publisher: Phoenix Press
The Dilemma

All Francesca Channing must do in order to keep her marriage alive, her children safe, her life intact, is to tell a lie. One simple, straightforward lie. But it isn’t that simple or straightforward at all.

Her husband is charismatic, powerful and rich—and he adores her. He’s also manipulative and scheming, with a family as large and complex as his business—Francesca is his third wife, after all. But it was an emotional crisis of her own which finally put Francesca’s dilemma into perspective, that made her wonder if she loved him enough to lie for him, that made her wonder how far she could go . . .

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 1996
ISBN: 978-0755332670
Publisher: Headline Review
Windfall

Cassia Fallon has always been the perfect country doctor's wife, performing each menial task with willingness and grace, even though her desire to become a doctor herself has been thwarted by lack of money. Then her godmother leaves her a fortune.

With her new-found wealth, Cassia is finally free to do as she pleases, and resumes her own medical career as Dr Cassia Tallow with a passion. But it soon becomes clear that her legacy may not be such a blessing after all, for Cassia begins to question the strength of her marriage, her future and exactly where the money has come from.

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 1997
ISBN: 978-0755332397
Publisher: Headline Review
Almost a Crime

Tom and Octavia Fleming have the perfect power marriage. Attractive, rich and successful, theirs appears to be a gilded life. But appearances can be deceptive.

When Octavia discovers Tom is having an affair, she is devastated. But the fallout from her husband's infidelity is far greater than she could have imagined. It seems nothing in the Flemings' charmed circle can escape the damage - to their children, their friends, even their precious careers.

As Octavia watches her life and the lives of those around her spin out of control, could it be that repairing her marriage will be enough? And even if she could, would she want to save something that now seems so tainted?

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 1996
ISBN: 978-0755332656
Publisher: Headline Review
Sheer Abandon

Martha, Clio, and Jocasta meet by chance at Heathrow airport in 1985 as they are starting off on separate backpacking adventures, and they decide to spend the first few days of their trips together in Thailand. 

When they go their separate ways, they vow to get together in London the following year. But many years pass before the three cross paths again, and the once-capricious, carefree girls now all have thriving careers. One of them, however, harbors a terrible secret: On her return from her pre-college excursion, she abandoned her just-born daughter at Heathrow.

Clio has fulfilled her ambition of becoming a doctor, only to find herself trapped in a marriage to an arrogant surgeon who belittles her and her professional achievements. Martha is a highly paid corporate lawyer, just embarking on a political career. Dedicated to her job, she has had little time for personal relationships and lives a busy, but lonely life. 

Jocasta, a tabloid newspaper reporter with an infallible instinct for the big story, is in love with a charming colleague who can’t make the permanent commitment she longs for. The infant abandoned at Heathrow has grown up under the loving care of her adoptive family. Now a beautiful teenager named Kate, she sets out to find her birth mother—a quest that unexpectedly brings the women together and exposes the secret buried so many years before.

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 2003
ISBN: 978-0767926256
Publisher: Anchor
An Absolute Scandal

Sometimes money isn't everything . . . sometimes, it's the only thing. And when the money disappears in the thick of a financial crisis, the real story begins. For Nigel Cowper, this means the destruction of his family business; his wife, Lucinda, is willing to do everything she can to help him—except give up her irresistible lover. 

The powerful, charismatic banker Simon Beaumont and his equally successful wife Elizabeth lose everything they've worked so hard to acquire; but the ultimate tragedy is something that neither one could have anticipated. Yet the well-to-do are not the only ones whose lives are upended: a self-sufficient widow, a single mother, and a schoolmaster find that their lives are also turned upside down in this deliciously readable tale.

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 2007
ISBN: 978-0767926263
Publisher: Anchor
The Best of Times

Everything can change in the blink of an eye. . .

On an ordinary London afternoon, a truck swerves across five lanes of traffic and creates a tangle of chaos and confusion. As loved ones wait to hear news and the hospital prepares to receive the injured, a dozen lives hang in the balance. A doctor is torn between helping the injured and hiding his young mistress; a bridegroom hopes to get to the church on time; a widow waiting to reunite with a lost love ponders whether she’ll ever see him again; and the mysterious hitchhiker, the only person who knows what really happened, is nowhere to be found.

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 2009
ISBN: 978-0767930857
Publisher: Anchor
More Than You Know

It’s 1958, and Eliza Clark has it all: good looks, a privileged upbringing, and a fast-paced career as a successful magazine editor. High fashion means high life, and she’s constantly jetting to Paris and Milan to take in the latest by Chanel, Dior, and Pucci. But when she falls head over heels for Matt Snow, an edgy working-class boy, and becomes pregnant, she is expected to give up her glamorous lifestyle and get married.

Although their marriage is intensely passionate, it soon begins to fracture. When their divorce ends in a dramatic custody battle over their little girl, Emmie, and Summercourt, the country estate that has been in her family for generations, it leaves Eliza with a difficult decision: Love? Or money?

NB: This book is also known as The Decision.

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 2011
ISBN: 978-0767930864
Publisher: Anchor
A Perfect Heritage

The House of Farrell is a prolific skincare company and home of The Cream, an iconic face product that has seen women flocking to its flagship London store since 1953. At Farrell, you can rely on the personal touch that has been their trademark for generations.

The legendary Athina Farrell remains the company’s figurehead in her kingdom at the Berkeley Arcade, while Florence Hamilton plies their cosmetics with the utmost care and discretion. She is sales advisor—and holder of secrets—extraordinaire. But of course the world of cosmetics is changing and the once glorious House of Farrell is now in decline, its customers tempted away by more fashionable brands.

With no idea how to right the ship, Athina hires Bianca Bailey, a formidable businesswoman, mother of three, and someone who always gets her way. Athina and Bianca lock horns over the future of the House of Farrell but it is the past that tells its devastating tale of ambition and ego, passion and wonder. A perfect summer read, this is Penny Vincenzi at her finest.

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 2014
ISBN: 978-1468312614
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
A Question of Trust

In 1950s London, Tom Knelston is charismatic, charming, with a passion for politics and reform. He is a man with ambition—and someone to watch. His wife Alice, a former nurse, shares his ideals. It seems they are the perfect match. Then, out of the blue, Tom meets an old childhood acquaintance, the beautiful and unhappily married Diana Southcott, a fashion model. 

In many ways, she is everything Tom fights against, but she is also irresistible and so, flirting with danger, they embark on an affair that is potentially damaging to both. And when his child becomes ill, Tom is forced to make decisions about his principles, his career, his marriage, and, most of all, his love for his child.

NB: This book is also known as At the Heart of It.

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 2017
ISBN: 978-0755377657
Publisher: Hachette UK

Collections

Love In The Afternoon and Other Delights

From her sweeping novels to her searing journalism, Penny Vincenzi has been writing all her life, and this is a collection of her work brought together in a single edition for the first time. As well as ten stunning short stories, Penny also shares some of her thoughts on a huge range of subjects from love and relationships to work and families, and gives us a peek at the tantalizing first chapter of her new novel, A KIND OF PROMISE - making LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON AND OTHER DELIGHTS a must-have for any Vincenzi fan.

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 2013
ISBN: 978-0755399581
Publisher: Headline

Non-fiction

The Compleat Liar

Life without lies would be insupportable. Recognizing our need to avoid the truth, Penny Vincenzi has written a guide, for beginner and expert alike, to the how, when and why of lying, in which she examines the lie in love, in marriage, at work, in advertising, male and female lies, and many more fascinating variations. Her book (with brilliant cartoons by Pete Willmin) is witty, helpful and disturbing -- and that's the honest truth.

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 1977
ISBN: 978-0304298853
Publisher: Cassell
There's One Born Every Minute: A Survival Guide for Parents

In this book, Penny Vincenzi provides practical advice and humorous anecdotes for new parents navigating the challenges of raising a child. She covers topics such as sleep schedules, feeding, health concerns, and discipline, while also discussing the emotional and psychological aspects of parenthood.

With her signature wit and warmth, Vincenzi offers a lighthearted yet informative guide for parents, drawing on her own experiences as a mother of four. This book has been praised for its relatable and practical advice, making it a helpful resource for anyone looking to prepare for the joys and challenges of parenthood.

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 1984
ISBN: 978-0722188453
Publisher: Sphere
Taking Stock: Over 75 Years of the Oxo Cube

This book chronicles the history of the Oxo cube, a popular stock cube used in cooking, from its inception in the early 20th century to the present day.

Vincenzi explores the origins of the company that produced the Oxo cube, the marketing strategies used to promote the product, and the cultural significance of the Oxo brand in British society. She also includes a number of recipes that feature the Oxo cube as an ingredient, demonstrating its versatility and importance in British cuisine.

Throughout the book, Vincenzi provides a fascinating glimpse into the history and evolution of a beloved culinary staple. Her research is meticulous, and her writing is engaging and informative, making "Taking Stock" a must-read for anyone interested in the history of food and cooking.

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 1995
ISBN: 978-0002181570
Publisher: Willow Books

Omnibus Books

Two Great Novels: Another Woman, Forbidden Places

Another Woman

The night before her lavish wedding, Cressida Forrest went to bed serene and happy. By morning she had vanished—without apparent cause, and without a trace. Shocked, anxious, and uncomprehending, the two families face a long day of revelations, as a complex, fragile web of sexual, marital, and financial secrets is ripped apart by Cressida’s disappearance.

Forbidden Places

It is the story of three women and one family. One is married and widowed within five years. She is free to start again. Or is she? The second has a perfect husband she thinks she loves. He becomes a grotesque parody of what he once was. Is that love real? The third becomes trapped in a nightmare marriage. Can the war free her?

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 2003
ISBN: 978-0752842516
Publisher: Orion Books
Sheer Abandon / The Golden Cup / The Summer I Dared

SHEER ABANDON by Penny Vincenzi

Martha, Clio, and Jocasta meet by chance at Heathrow airport in 1985 as they are starting off on separate backpacking adventures, and they decide to spend the first few days of their trips together in Thailand.

When they go their separate ways, they vow to get together in London the following year. But many years pass before the three cross paths again, and the once-capricious, carefree girls now all have thriving careers. One of them, however, harbors a terrible secret: On her return from her pre-college excursion, she abandoned her just-born daughter at Heathrow.

THE GOLDEN CUP by Marcia Willett

Paradise has been home to generations of Trevannions: Paradise, the house at the head of a sheltered Cornish valley where Mrs Trevannion lives, surrounded by her family. Frail and elderly Honor Trevannion, bedridden following a nasty fall, is inexplicably anxious and distressed by the arrival of a young American bearing an old black and white photograph of a double wedding and looking for a long-lost relation.

Her children Bruno and Emma, granddaughter Joss and faithful cousin Mousie try to nurse Honor back to health, unaware of the secrets which she keeps from those closest to her. Increasingly troubled and confused, she begs Joss to find a cache of letters which have been hidden for fifty years.

THE SUMMER I DARED by Barbara Delinsky

What comes after the moment that forever changes your life?

This is the question that haunts Julia Bechtel, Noah Prine, and Kim Colella, the only survivors of a terrible boating accident off the coast of Maine that claimed the lives of nine other people.

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 2005
ISBN: 978-0276429972
Publisher: Headline Review

Spoils of Time

No Angel

Celia Lytton is the beautiful and strong-willed daughter of wealthy aristocrats and she is used to getting her way. She moves through life making difficult and often dangerous decisions that affect herself and others—her husband, Oliver, and their children; the destitute Sylvia Miller, whose life is transformed by Celia’s intrusion; as well as Oliver’s daunting elder sister, who is not all she appears to be; and Sebastian Brooke, for whom Celia makes the most dangerous decision of all.

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 2000
ISBN: 978-1585676071
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
Something Dangerous

The dazzling Lytton twins, Adele and Venetia, are born into the great Lytton publishing empire. In 1928, on their eighteenth birthday, they are rich and admired, with a confidence verging on arrogance. But the specter of Nazi Germany is growing…

Gradually their privileged world darkens in unimaginable ways―but it is not just the twins whose lives have been irrevocably changed. Barty Miller, rescued from the London slums in babyhood by Celia Lytton, is clever, ambitious, and a complete contrast to the twins―and she faces temptation of the most unexpected kind…

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 2001
ISBN: 978-1585677092
Publisher: The Overlook Press
Into Temptation

Rescued from the slums as a baby by Celia Lytton and now living in New York, Barty Miller heads more than half of the Lyttons publishing house. But as they fall on bad times in the years after World War II, the family is worried that Barty will make a business decision that would be devastating to them. But will she? As events unfold, long-buried secrets concerning the whole family are revealed—and Celia makes a shocking announcement that she is leaving the company and getting remarried—shaking the very foundations of the Lyttons’ world . . .

Author: Penny Vincenzi
First Release: 2002
ISBN: 978-0755332427
Publisher: Headline Review