Children's author
Jennifer was born in 1985, in London, where she still lives now. As a child she loved listening to stories, but didn't like reading! In fact, most of the brilliant children's books that were published when she was growing up were recounted to her by her little sister on their walks to school. She enjoyed art and movies and wanted to be a film director, so she spent most of her spare time at the cinema. After leaving school, she studied Film at university, where she was taught screenwriting by acclaimed British filmmaker, Clio Barnard.
After University, Jennifer was given a copy of Eragon by Christopher Paolini – a story about a boy who finds a dragon's egg. It was the first book she’d enjoyed reading cover to cover and, like a window, it opened up the magic of reading. She soon became an avid reader of children's books and got a job at the famous Foyles bookshop on Charing Cross Road. There she became a specialist children's bookseller, helping children of all ages to find the right books for them. As well as caring for the shop’s five piranha fish, she assisted many interesting customers, including royalty, astronauts, sports stars, Hollywood actors, politicians, musicians and artists. She was an integral part of the team who won Children's Bookseller of the Year at the 2012 British Book Awards.
Jennifer wrote her debut novel, The Uncommoners: The Crooked Sixpence, during her lunch breaks and signed a publishing deal with Penguin Random House the following year. She left Foyles to work at an independent children’s bookshop, where she and her colleagues won Children’s Bookseller of the Year at the British Book Awards in 2017. The Uncommoners: The Crooked Sixpence was published in 2016 and went on to become a Waterstones Children's book of the month and a Sunday Times bestseller. The sequels, The Smoking Hourglass and The Frozen Telescope followed in 2017 and 2018. To date, the series has been translated into sixteen different languages.
Jennifer left bookselling in 2018 to become a full-time children’s author. She has since published a wildlife-rescue series, Agents of The Wild, and the time-travel duology, Wonderscape and Legendarium, the first of which was selected as a Waterstones Children's book of the month. Her latest novel, Magicalia: Thief of Shadows, is the second book in an exciting new fantasy series.
