Meet Margaret Ann Spence. Award-winning author, Margaret Ann Spence, dreamed of writing books at a young age. Her journey from hopeful to published author included a move from her native Australia to the United States. A love of baking, Boston and all things British led to the 2017 debut of her first novel, Lipstick on the Strawberry, which garnered international acclaim and multiple awards. Her second novel, Joyous Lies—a tale of mystery, suspense, love and one woman’s search for the truth—will launch February 15th.
Born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, Margaret emigrated to the United States after a year in England, at the age of twenty-three. She earned a master’s degree in journalism, wrote a slew of press releases as a publicist, and, with small children underfoot, published feature articles in newspapers and magazines.
Margaret has lived on the East and West Coasts, though she didn’t explore writing fiction until she moved to Arizona and
joined a writers’ group. She transitioned from factual reporting by writing essays. Her essay, “The Dog Catcher of Jabiru”, won the Tara L. Masih Intercultural Essay Prize in the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition in 2014.
Once she discovered she could “make things up and get away with it”, Margaret started writing novels. She writes about women and their families, and the secrets that lie beneath. When not at her desk,Margaret tends an unruly garden, cooks up a storm in the kitchen and cherishes time with her family. She’s an active member of Sisters in Crime Grand Canyon Writers, the Historical Novel Society and several other professional writers’ organizations.
Lipstick on the Strawberry—her debut novel about family secrets, a father’s hidden life and a long-forgotten romance revived—garnered five-star reviews. It won the Romantic Elements Category in the First Coast Romance Writers Beacon Contest, was a finalist for the 2019 Eric Hoffer Book Award and in the 2019 Next Generation Indie Awards.
Margaret’s second book, Joyous Lies, is the story of Maelle, a young botanist who was raised from the age of ten on her grandparents’ commune, after her mother died, where she imbibed the commune’s utopian beliefs of love for all. When Maelle meets Zachary the first man she’s cared for, he alleges he knows the truth about her mother’s death, devastating Maelle. Probing the commune’s secrets, Maelle is forced to ask her own questions, finding strength she never knew she had. When she discovers what really happened to her mother—and the commune’s possible complicity—she must gather the courage to challenge all she knows, regardless of where the answers lie.
(February 15, 2021 – The Wild Rose Press)
Readers’ Favorites Early Review: “Joyous Lies is a wonderfully written, heartfelt exposition of the way in which families will often bend the truth or outright lie to protect reputations or to soften the blow of mistakes for those who follow behind.”
To learn more about Margaret, go to www.margaretannspence.com
