Santa Montefiore

Who is Santa Montefiore?

Santa Montefiore, born Santa Palmer-Tomkinson, is a British author.

Santa is the sister of socialite Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. Her parents are Charles Palmer-Tomkinson and Patricia Palmer-Tomkinson, of Anglo-Argentine background. Her father represented Great Britain in skiing at Olympic level. Her family have been close friends of the Prince of Wales for over 30 years.

Montefiore was born in Winchester, and attended Hanford School from the age of eight to twelve. She then attended Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset.

Before reading Spanish and Italian at Exeter University, Montefiore worked for a year on an Argentine estancia. She lived for much of the 1990s in Buenos Aires, where she befriended Máxima Zorreguieta Cerruti, now Queen Máxima of the Netherlands. Four of her books are set in Argentina. She is married to writer and historian Simon Sebag Montefiore and has two children, Lily and Sasha; she converted to Judaism before the marriage. She is a socialite often featured in the gossip columns of upmarket magazines.