Biography

LM Shakespeare is the writer of Monsieur Law, sequel to the acclaimed 17th-century historical novel Malice and of three modern financial thrillers Mal Harris trilogy: Utmost Good Faith / Lodestar; The Gentlemen’s Mafia; Poisoning the Angels / Death Valley; and The Messenger.

Born the youngest of a family of four in a small Welsh valley, she and her siblings were educated at boarding schools in England from the age of seven.

LM Shakespeare married while still an undergraduate at Cambridge University. From there followed life as the wife of a diplomat, first in the Netherlands, and then in the Middle East. This was a period of some adventure, drama and glamour, providing valuable material for subsequent writing, but after four years the marriage to Mr Shakespeare broke up.

Faced with the problem of supporting herself and her daughter she retrained as a dress designer, and launched the label Margot Shakespeare as a wholesale design and manufacturing company. The dresses, designed and manufactured for orders of up to 900 at a time, were bought by a long list of stores in the UK, America, France and Germany, including John Lewis, Harrods, Miss Selfridge, Macy's, and Roger and Gallet in Paris.

During this period she wrote a series of articles for The Western Mail on subjects as varied as 16th century children's literature and women's liberation. In addition she published occasional articles in The Telegraph, and features on travel and literature in various magazines. She published short stories, notably in the magazine Honey, and won an international competition for short stories with "The Zip", published in The European.

"Utmost Good Faith", the first of three financial thrillers, was published in hardback and paperback in the UK, and America, Germany and Japan, and draws deeply on her experience of diplomatic life, travel, and the world of finance and commerce. The main backgound is Lloyd's of London, where fortunes are won and lost. A new edition of this has now been published by Hopcyn Press (Title: "Lodestar") and is currently available from Amazon as a Kindle edition.

In 1990 there followed the second financial thriller, "The Gentlemen's Mafia". Lloyd's, meanwhile, had been savaged by the internal drama of Cameron Webb and Peter Dixon, whose combined theft impoverished many members of the market. "The Gentlemen's Mafia" took this real conflict as its base, and subjected it to the alchemical workings of the imagination. Hopcyn Press have also re-published "The Gentlemen's Mafia", as well as "Death Valley", her third thriller. "Death Valley" is the story of a toxic waste dumping cover-up in the Mojave Desert of California.

In 2005 L M Shakespeare was approached by a publisher who asked her if she would be interested in writing a novel using as a base the letters of Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orleans in the Court of Louis XIV. Hundreds of examples of this fascinating correspondence survive, and make enthralling reading. The plots, villainies, poisonings, jealousies, and crimes - as well as hilarious gossip uninhibitedly recounted by this outspoken German princess - form the base of the historical novel "Malice" published in hardback by Stacey International in 2007. "Malice", again using real events with one central conflict seen through the magic eye of the imagination, is also a rigorously accurate account of court and country life during the reign of Louis XIV. In October 2012 "The Messenger", in hardback and Kindle editions was published by Hopcyn Press

She also writes poetry, and is published in magazines in America. She has been engaged in Buddhist study and training (Mahayana) for 30 years. She lives in London and Oxfordshire.

L.M.Shakespeare publishes poetry and short stories, as well as a blog.