I’ve worked as a journalist since I was 18 when I got a job as a messenger girl at the Jewish Chronicle. Now I work there again, as Features Editor. But I’ve done a lot of things in between.
I’ve been a reporter, a political correspondent, a news editor, a comment editor, feature writer and in Amsterdam I was editor in chief for a photographic agency. I worked for The Independent for many years, and have also written for many other national newspapers and magazines.
I grew up in Welwyn Garden City and have lived in London, Glasgow and Amsterdam. In 2007 my family moved back to London after eight years in the Netherlands and I decided to try to write a book.
I signed up for a course in Writing for Children at City University which was tutored by Amanda Swift. I got the idea of writing a book about a boy in witness protection, and roughed out a story during a plot-planning exercise in class. That story became my first book When I Was Joe, and eventually a trilogy (with Almost True and Another Life.)
I’m adapting my book, Lia’s Guide to Winning the Lottery into a musical, working with Perfect Pitch, Paul Herbert and Lesley Ross.
I’ve written eight YA books:
The ‘Joe’ Trilogy – When I was Joe (2010), Almost True (2010)and Another Life (2012)
Lia’s Guide to Winning the Lottery (2011)
Salvage (2014)
This is not a Love Story (2015)
Cuckoo (2016)
The Liar’s Handbook (2017)
and my next one, Stranger, will be published in January 2018.
I live in London with my husband, my kids (pretty grown up now) and our two cats Wilbur and Dexter. They belonged to our neighbour, but she had to move to a flat where she couldn’t have cats so we adopted them to keep them together.