Vivien Varga, originally from Exeter, has worked as an English and Drama teacher in Warwickshire and the West Midlands and lived for several years in Italy teaching English as a Foreign Language. She now spends her time writing and travelling. Marika, inspired by her mother's stories of her childhood and wartime experiences, is her first book; A Perfect Ending and other Stories, a book of fast-moving tales on diverse themes, her second, with Rescuing Ava, a psychological thriller, being her third.