Jill Dawson – författare

'A work of genius ... a profoundly feminist book' Louise Doughty 'A funny, feminist bildungsroman ... will see her scoop up any Sarah Waters fans who haven't already discovered her' Patrick Gale 'It's thrilling to live with this book' Monique Roffey “Pixie”. I like it. “Pixie Pamela”. It’s a good name for me: sometimes tiny and invisible. Other times bouncing up to the ceiling to look down on everyone.It’s the turn of the twentieth century and Pamela ‘Pixie’ Colman Smith is a young woman of stark contradictions: plucky yet naïve, artistically gifted despite lacking classical training, fascinated by the esoteric but sceptical of the world around her.After the deaths of her beloved mother and her troubled but well-intentioned father, Pixie finds herself in the complex, political world of fin-de-siècle art, trying to get her stunning work seen and to forge a name and a path for herself in life. Across Jamaica, Devon, London and Brooklyn, Pixie is a novel of epic proportions, a tale of the twists and turns, séances and secrets, successes and devastation, of one young woman’s talent, grit and determination.In Pixie, Jill Dawson renders the real-life figure of Pamela ‘Pixie’ Colman Smith, artist, publisher and illustrator of the still-iconic Rider–Waite–Smith tarot deck, in arrestingly vivid detail, breathing life into a story that is instantly knowable, but has, until now, eluded popular imagination.'A rich and marvellous story' Sadie Jones 'A truly bold and vigorous and immersive writer' Christobel Kent

A young couple abandon the urban jungle of London's East End for a remote, mountainous corner of Washington State. Chosen by Mick, who is half-American, the place seems as alien as the moon to Rita. But she soon adjusts to raising their small daughter, Frances, in a broken-down cabin without electricity or water, and revels in the untamed beauty of their surroundings. She's scared, though, of the wild animals howling and screeching outside by night. What she cannot admit is her fear of Mick's violent temper. Worse, perhaps, are her own flashes of anger at Frances, frightening losses of control which leave her feeling shaken and guilty. Then she meets Ryan, a redneck poacher who plants in her mind the seed of rebellion.In this, her striking debut novel, Jill Dawson creates a subtle and compassionate portrait of a young mother struggling to protect her child and of a father destroyed by his own childhood.

In 18th-century France, a child is captured in the forests near Aveyron where he seems to have been living wild for seven years. Now 12 years old, the Wild Boy is put on public display as a freak, and finally handed over to the ambitious, emotionally repressed Doctor Itard, who is charged with educating the boy, whom he names Victor, and trying to discover the secrets of his strange, secret life. But Victor soon becomes a pawn in the raging debate about nature vs nurture, and Itard's attempts to civilise him bear little fruit. Instead, Victor seems drawn to Mme Guerin, his motherly guardian - and to her vivacious daughter, Julie, who is herself falling for Itard as he struggles to understand both Victor and his own confused emotions. Giving a vivid sense of the Revolutionary period, the novel brings to life through the stories of three fascinating characters a mysterious case that resonates in the modern day preoccupation with autism.

A ten-year-old girl vanishes without trace from a Fenland village, her body never found. Thirty years on, she comes sharply back to life in the mind's eye of her childhood friend, Tina Humber, who has done her best to put the past behind her. But now, as Tina returns home for a family wedding, she replays her memories in search of what happened, fearing that deep down she has always known who killed Mandy Baker.

In the summer of 1909, seventeen-year-old Nell Golightly is the new maid at the Orchard Tea Gardens in Cambridgeshire when Rupert Brooke moves in as a lodger. Famed for his looks and flouting of convention, the young poet captures the hearts of men and women alike, yet his own seems to stay intact. Even Nell, despite her good sense, begins to fall for him. What is his secret?This captivating novel gives voice to Rupert Brooke himself in a tale of mutual fascination and inner turmoil, set at a time of great social unrest. Revealing a man far more complex and radical than legend suggests, it powerfully conveys the allure - and curse - of charisma.

Crime's a man's business. So they say. Who was that small figure then, slender enough to trot along the moonlit track, swift and low, virtually invisible? Who was it that covered the green signal with a glove to stop the train, while the two others took care of the driver and his mate? Could it have been one Queenie Dove, survivor of the Depression and the Blitz, not to mention any number of scrapes with the law?Queenie Dove is a self-proclaimed genius when it comes to thieving and escape. Daring, clever and sexy, she ducked and dived through the streets of London from the East End through Soho to Mayfair, graduating from childhood shop-lifting to more glamorous crimes in the post-war decades. So was she wicked through and through, or more sinned against than sinning? Here she tells a vivacious tale of trickery and adventure, but one with more pain and heartbreak than its heroine cares to admit. Yes, luck often favoured her, but that is only part of the story.

22 stunning tales of pregnancy, birth and beyond...Emily Perkins, Polly Samson, Peter Carey, Julia Darling, Judith Bryan, Roddy Doyle, Jill Dawson, Chandani Lokuge, Eva Sallis, Margo Daly, Bridget O'Connor, Christopher Cyril, Alice Jerome, Bernard Cohen, David Guterson, Kathy Page, Kathryn Heyman, Nikki Gemmel, Simone Lazeroo, Hannah Fink, Nick Hornby, Rosie Waitt This highly varied and vibrant mosaic of fiction and memoir by some of our finest contemporary writers captures the individual and unique, as well as the quotidian and universal, in the birth experience. As Kathy Page's narrator puts it to her baby, 'You and I, the two of us, moving on, but the same time going back, where everyone has been before.' Here are the alterations of consciousness, the anxieties, vulnerabilities and glories of mothers; the baffled and triumphant perspectives of fathers.The full range of experience of new parents has been included, so that along with the intensity, joys and passions, there are still-births, unwanted pregnancies, post-natal depression, resentment of the father (who is at least able to slip out for a pint of Guinness - superbly captured in Jill Dawson's 'Twilight Zone'), plus autism, feelingly described by Nick Hornby. This is a moving and enlightening anthology, one to satisfy the cravings of expectant parents, certainly, but also for everyone else keen on fine prose and curious about the beginnings of life for us all.

LONGLISTED FOR THE FOLIO PRIZE 2015One heart, two lives...When a teenager dies in an accident in rural Cambridgeshire, it affords Patrick, a fifty-year-old professor, drinker and womaniser, the chance of a life-saving heart transplant. But as Patrick recovers, he has the odd feeling that his old life 'won't have him'. He becomes bewitched by the story of his heart, ever more curious about the boy who donated it, his ancestors, the Fenland he grew up in. What exactly has Patrick been given?

'Brilliant'Paula HawkinsIn 1964, the eccentric American novelist Patricia Highsmith is hiding out in a cottage in Suffolk, to concentrate on her writing and escape her fans. She has another motive too - a secret romance with a married lover based in London. Unfortunately it soon becomes clear that all her demons have come with her. Prowlers, sexual obsessives, frauds, imposters, suicides and murderers: the tropes of her fictions clamour for her attention, rudely intruding on her peaceful Suffolk retreat. After the arrival of Ginny, an enigmatic young journalist bent on interviewing her, events take a catastrophic turn. Except, as always in Highsmith's troubled life, matters are not quite as they first appear . . .Masterfully recreating Highsmith's much exercised fantasies of murder and madness, Jill Dawson probes the darkest reaches of the imagination in this novel - at once a brilliant portrait of a writer and an atmospheric, emotionally charged, riveting tale.

A hypnotic and thought-provoking novel inspired by the sensational Lord Lucan case, by the Orange Prize-shortlisted author of Fred & Edie.

Drawing on the infamous Lord Lucan affair, this compelling novel explores the roots of a shocking murder from a fresh perspective and brings to vivid life an era when women's voices all too often went unheard. In the summer of 1974, Mandy River arrives in London to make a fresh start and begins working as nanny to the children of one Lady Morven. She quickly finds herself in the midst of a bitter custody battle and the house under siege: Lord Morven is having his wife watched. According to Lady Morven, her estranged husband also has a violent streak, yet she doesn't seem the most reliable witness. Should Mandy believe her? As Mandy edges towards her tragic fate, her friend Rosemary watches from the wings - an odd girl with her own painful past and a rare gift. This time, though, she misreads the signs.

'OUR MOST CONSUMMATE HISTORICAL NOVELIST' Philip Hoare'Brilliant'Paula Hawkins'Devastating'The Times'Terrific'Mail on SundayFrom the award-winning author of The Language of Birds and The Crime Writer, a chilling tale of a witch-huntAlice Samuel might be old and sharp-tongued, but she's no fool. Visiting her new neighbours in her Fenland village, she finds Squire Throckmorton's family troubled and, she suspects, not as God-fearing as they seem. Yet when one of the daughters accuses her of witchcraft, Alice has no idea of the danger she is in or how quickly matters will escalate.The Throckmortons' maid Martha, uneasy herself about strange goings-on in the household, is reluctant to believe that Alice is a witch. But as the entire village gets swept up in the frenzied persecution of one of their own, she struggles to find a voice . . .PRAISE FOR JILL DAWSON'A skilful storyteller'Hilary Mantel'A magnificent writer'Cathy Rentzenbrink'A spark fires throughout Dawson's work'Guardian

A dazzling, shocking novel that speaks to our times, drawing on the 16th-century case of the witches of Warboys.

'A literary page-turner . . . compulsive and thought-provoking' Paula HawkinsA dazzling, shocking novel that speaks to our times, drawing on the 16th-century case of the witches of Warboys.Alice Samuel might be old and sharp-tongued, but she's no fool. Visiting her new neighbours in her Fenland village, she suspects Squire Throckmorton's household is not as God-fearing as it seems and finds the children troubled. Yet when one of the daughters accuses her of witchcraft, Alice has no inkling of how quickly matters will escalate.The Throckmortons' maid Martha, uncomfortably aware of strange goings-on in the household herself, is reluctant to believe that Alice is a witch. But as evidence mounts and the entire village is swept up in the frenzied persecution of one of their own, she struggles to find a voice.Drawing on the 16th-century case of the witches of Warboys, this is a novel of searing imagination that vividly conveys the way fear can turn into paranoia and victims be made to believe in their own wickedness, especially when those in power hold all the cards.