Serena Mackesy ( pen name, Alex Marwood; born c. 1960s) is a British novelist and journalist who lives in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

Life and education

Serena Mackesy is the daughter of the Scots-born

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

military historian

Piers Mackesy Piers Gerald Mackesy (15 September 1924 – 30 June 2014) was a British military historian who taught at the University of Oxford. Early life and education Piers Mackesy was born in Cults, near Aberdeen in Scotland, the son of Major-General Pi ...

. She is also the granddaughter on her mother's side of the novelist

Margaret Kennedy Margaret Moore Kennedy (23 April 1896 – 31 July 1967) was an English novelist and playwright. Her most successful work, as a novel and as a play, was '' The Constant Nymph''. She was a productive writer and several of her works were filmed. T ...

and on her father's side of Leonora Mackesy (born 1902), who wrote Harlequin romances as Leonora Starr and Dorothy Rivers. She grew up on the Oxfordshire/

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

borders and went to school in

, where she gained a

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

degree in English literature from Manchester College, Oxford.Author site
Retrieved 2 April 2011.
Mackesy worked variously in offices, as an English teacher and on

door-to-door Door-to-door is a canvassing technique that is generally used for sales, marketing, advertising, evangelism or campaigning, in which the person or persons walk from the door of one house to the door of another, trying to sell or advertise a pro ...

sales before, as she told an interviewer in 2000: "I arrived at ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'' as a temp to cover for the secretary on the TV listings page... for a couple of weeks, realised I'd found somewhere I enjoyed and somehow never left.... I think the first writing I did was little potted movie previews on the weekend TV spread. The first thing anyone seemed to actually notice was a small daily bar review I used to write when the paper had a London supplement." By 1997 she was a regular columnist. As a child, Serena Mackesy was a keen rider. She has described

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

as her favourite place in the world.

Novels

Mackesy established her reputation with the novel ''The Temp'' (1999). This went into the ''Sunday Times'' Top Ten on publication. Since then, she has published ''Virtue'' (2000), ''Simply Heaven'' (2002), and ''Hold My Hand'' (2008). In 2012, she adopted the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

"Alex Marwood" with the publication of the psychological thriller '' The Wicked Girls''. This became a

word-of-mouth Word of mouth, or ''viva voce'', is the passing of information from person to person using oral communication, which could be as simple as telling someone the time of day. Storytelling is a common form of word-of-mouth communication where one pe ...

bestseller in the UK, and was translated into 17 languages. It was included in Stephen King's ''Entertainment Weekly'' list of "The Ten Best Books I read this year" in 2013 and was shortlisted for an ITW award in the same year. The book won the

Edgar Allan Poe Award The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards honor the bes ...

(best paperback original) in 2014 and is also shortlisted for the

Macavity Awards The Macavity Awards are a literary award for mystery writers. Nominated and voted upon annually by the members of the Mystery Readers International, the award is named for the " mystery cat" of T. S. Eliot's ''Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats'' ...

and

Anthony Awards The Anthony Awards are literary awards for mystery writers presented at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention since 1986. The awards are named for Anthony Boucher (1911–1968), one of the founders of the Mystery Writers of America Mystery W ...

in the United States. A follow-up, ''The Killer Next Door'', was published in 2014 followed, in 2016, by ''The Darkest Secret''."Alex Marwood" website
/ref> Work of Mackesy's has been translated into 19 languages. Writers she admires include

Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American writer known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. In a career spanning over 50 years, he published fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and ...

C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge Univers ...

( ''Narnia'' series), John Donne and the "other" Elizabeth Taylor (''Angel'').

Awards and recognition

* 2013, shortlisted, ITW award * 2014, winner,

* shortlisted,

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mackesy, Serena 1960s births Living people 21st-century English novelists People from Oxfordshire English journalists 21st-century English women writers Writers from London English women novelists English women non-fiction writers 21st-century pseudonymous writers Pseudonymous women writers