This biography describes her totally amazing life. Born into a well off military family (distantly related to the Duke of Wellington) before the First World War she was told by her mother that she was unwanted and if she'd had to have another child she only wanted a boy. Mary wasn't given any education to speak of and saw very little of either of her parents. In the 1920s she did all those things expected of an upper class girl, and to escape her mother she married totally unsuitably, and into the peerage (albeit a recently purchased title). At the outbreak of the war she joined MI5 and led a totally promiscuous life, eventually having three sons by three different men. She ended up falling in love with a married man, and although she was able to divorce her own husband her lover's wife turned into a bitter stalker who waged a bizarre campaign to destroy her husband and prevent him from divorcing and marrying Mary. The history of this divorce alone might have constituted several novels. Eric, the man Mary finally managed to marry was unstable and a failed writer. The pair were poverty stricken and it was only when Eric died that Mary's writing was accepted for publication.
Many of the characters in Mary's own life turned up (amended?) in her books. Patrick Marnham describes this eccentric character with sympathy but manages to reveal her many failings. I don't think she can really be described as a very nice person, but this book is entertaining and explains many of the things about her novels - which I enjoy. Rating 8/10
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