PIECE OF MY HEART

PENELOPE TREE

RIGHTS SOLD: Moonflower Books (UK) - Publishes May 23, 2024

RIGHTS AVAILABLE: All other rights controlled by the bks Agency

Fame. Money. Beauty. Sex. Love. Ari wants them all. And as the face of the 1960s, they’re hers for the taking. But to find them, she may have to lose herself.

Trapped between the suffocation of English boarding school and a chaotic homelife dominated by her eccentric mother, Ari longs for a different kind of life – one lived in the glamour of London, with the pop stars and fashion icons she adores. It seems impossible until she is discovered by Bill Ramsey – the notorious bad boy photographer of the Swinging Sixties set.

Suddenly, Ari’s life is transformed into a dizzying whirlwind of drugs, photoshoots, and parties, all with the famous Ramsey by her side. The young couple are the darlings of the media. But in the fickle world of fashion, nothing lasts forever – and Ari’s addiction, her eating disorder and her increasingly dysfunctional relationship with Ramsey send her life spinning out of control.

A Vogue cover shoot in Nepal offers Ari a make-or-break chance – not just to revive her ailing career, but to win back Ramsey’s love, the only thing that matters to her. But in the captivating surroundings, Ari finds herself wondering how much more of herself she must lose to keep the things she always thought she wanted.

An honest and strikingly moving exploration of what we will sacrifice for love, amid a richly-detailed setting of 1960s London’s fashion scene. Piece Of My Heart is a coming-of-age story with a difference that will appeal to readers of Marian Keyes’s Rachel’s Holiday and Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins-Reid.

Penelope Tree was born in New York City in 1949 and educated in the US. Her British father had been an MP for Market Harborough between 1932-1945 and her American mother had been US Ambassador for Human Rights under President Kennedy.

At the age of sixteen, Penelope was spotted at Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball by the photographer Richard Avedon. Together with the legendary Diana Vreeland, they launched her modelling career in the pages of American Vogue. She went on to become a top model and worked with many of the great photographers of the era.

At eighteen, Penelope dropped out of Sarah Lawrence College and moved to London to live with David Bailey, the British photographer, twelve years her senior. They worked and travelled together extensively until the fallout from their tumultuous relationship resulted in late-onset acne that effectively ended Penelope’s modelling career. They parted in 1973. 

Several years of depression and soul searching followed. Then in 1977 she met Ricky Fataar the South African musician and lived with him in Los Angeles where their daughter Paloma was born. In 1981 they moved to Sydney Australia during which time Penelope worked as a researcher for a television series, and the environmental charity, Planet Ark. She became a Buddhist student and served on the Australia Tibet Council. Her son Michael was born in 1989.

In 1998, Penelope and her family relocated back to London. She has served on the board of Lotus Outreach International since 2003 and has been the UK representative of the Khyentse Foundation for many years. She has written articles for American and British Vogue, for the Financial Times and for Harpers Queen.