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When journalist Sarah-Kate Lynch was told by a former editor that she was only employed to tell jokes in the canteen, she started looking for another career. Twenty years later (it was a really good canteen), she found one: writing novels.

She also writes two columns in the New Zealand Woman's Weekly, New Zealand's best-read magazine. One is about nothing and the other is about books.

For a long time she didn't even know what a blog was, but now she writes one every week for the ASB bank (link at left) and one whenever she remembers for this website.

Sarah-Kate usually lives in a cliff top house on the wild west coast of New Zealand (not, by the way, the one pictured below) but likes to escape whenever possible for "research" purposes to far-flung spots in pretty parts of the world where she enjoys the local cuisine and the odd glass of wine.

Sometimes she takes her naughty little grey-haired husband Ted with her but her lovely big Ginger dog always stays at home.

Oh, hang on, that's not right. The husband is Ginger and the dog is Ted. And the dog sometimes goes too.


House of Daughters is my latest book to be published in the US. It is rather cleverly the story of three estranged sisters who inherit a rather crumbling champagne house in France. The cleverness comes with having had to drown myself in champagne while researching the story. Oh yes, I can be quite tireless when duty requires it.

I spent six weeks in Champagne finding out how champagne is made and why that one doesn't taste like that one. Or does it? Hang on, perhaps I had better try it again. No it is different. Or is it? Just one more go. More different this time. Or less? Not sure.

You get the drift.

During my travels I was lucky enough to be a guest of Veuve Cliquot, Moet & Chandon and even wangled a lunch out of Remy Krug at Krug Champagne.

However, my favourite discovery was the House of Tarlant, a small boutique champagne house, much more like my fictional House of Peine, because it is all run by one family and they grow all their own grapes.

The Tarlants now sell my book from their winery near Epernay so I am assuming I got everything right. Although of course they speak French and the book is written in English.

Selected Works

Fiction
Dolci di Love
When childless Lily Turner finds out her perfect husband has a secret family in Tuscany she goes there to find him and chop him into a thousand tiny pieces – but an underground league of Italian widows hell-bent on mending broken hearts has other plans.
On Top Of Everything
Florence Dowling believes rotten things happen in threes so when she loses her job and her husband in the space of a single day, she knows there's worse to come. *US readers see BOOKS page to find out about getting a copy of this book.
House of Daughters
US version of The House of Peine. Mathilde, Clementine and Sophie have nothing in common except the champagne that runs in their blood. But is that enough?
The House of Peine
Three estranged sisters battle it out among the vineyards of France when they inherit a failing Champagne House.
Eating With The Angels
Life turns sour for a high-falutin' restaurant critic when her romantic Venetian honeymoon turns into a nightmare.
By Bread Alone
“Witty, charming, faithfully passionate to its subject and emotionally adept. If only this book was a man.”
-Sunday Star Times
Blessed Are the Cheesemakers
“In the spirit of Chocolat...a tender love story told through the medium of cheese.”
-Publishers Weekly
Finding Tom Connor
“A cross between Bridget Jones’s Diary and Waking Ned Devine, this is a romantic and rollicking good read.”
-Next Magazine
Short Stories
Bosom Buddies
A collection of entertaining, powerful & thought-provoking short stories by some of the finest contemporary writers in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Non-Fiction
The Modern Girl’s Guide to Life
A smorgasbord of columns from the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly’s favourite columnist.