Lisa Jewell

Lisa Jewell

Lisa Jewell is a British author of bestselling contemporary fiction and psychological thrillers. Born in London, England, and educated at St. Michael’s Catholic Grammar School, Lisa was an avid reader in childhood and discovered Agatha Christie at her local library when she was twelve. “I can’t remember taking Agatha Christie off the shelf, but I do know that from that book on it was like crack for me,” she said. “I read all her books over the space of a year.” After finishing Christie’s books, she didn’t seriously read fiction again until her twenties.

After leaving high school, Lisa attended Barnet College and earned a diploma in fashion illustration at Epsom School of Art & Design. She worked in fashion retail for several years, but after being laid off in her late twenties she was looking at what to do next. She told her friend Yasmin Boland she wanted to write a novel and Yasmin challenged her to write three chapters in exchange for a dinner at her favourite restaurant. Lisa eventually developed those three chapters into her debut novel, Ralph’s Party, which became a bestseller in 1999.

In her early twenties, Lisa “married in haste” and said it was a decision she immediately regretted, wanting to exit the marriage soon after. “I ended up stuck in this coercive marriage for five years, always thinking that my moment would come. Towards the end of the fourth year, I was introduced to a man on my first day at the office and the minute I saw him I thought, ‘It’s you, it’s you. You’re my happily ever after’,” she said in an interview. She left her first husband shortly after and married Jascha (her “happily ever after”). They currently live in London with their two daughters.

She has written twenty-three novels so far with many appearing on the top of international bestseller lists. Her latest novel, Breaking The Dark, is the first book in the brand new Marvel Crime series.