Author of much-loved Irish historical fiction – and so much more. She comes from a long line of storytellers, and weaves tales that keep you up long after you should be asleep.

I was born in Cork in 1971 into a large and lively family, and grew up surrounded by love – not just love of family, but love of Ireland and of stories too.

Those combined passions led me to become a tour guide of Ireland and then to study History and English at University College Cork. 

My father always joked that I had found a way to be paid for my hobby of talking. Meanwhile, I set out to learn the story behind the captivating landscape of my beloved Ireland. 

Fiction is, for me, the conversation of mankind. It doesn’t matter where you live, how old you are, what you believe or don’t, what colour your skin is, whether you’re male or female, if your heart is broken, or you dread lunch with your sister-in-law, or you miss your best friend, fiction shows us that those feelings unite us all. My stories are uniquely Irish, but also I like to think, universal. Stories help us to feel less alone in the world; someone, somewhere at some time, has felt exactly as you do. 

But stories are also a two-way street. As much as I’ve told tales of Ireland to those visiting its shores, they told me their stories too. Lost loves, found families, ties which stretched across oceans and across generations. A 91-year-old woman who’d left Ireland as a baby, sitting at last on the bed where she was born. Scattering the ashes of an Irish bar-owner from Florida on the Dingle Peninsula under a rainbow sky. I heard so many stories. Heartwarming, heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious, but always deeply human.

My writing has been compared very flatteringly to the late, great Maeve Binchy, and as a lifelong Maeve fan, this warms my heart. She was the queen of Irish literature and I’m very happy to learn at her knee. 

Being a tour guide combined the best of sharing stories with visitors to Ireland and hearing their stories in return. And given that first books are often autobiographical, how could I not write about my experiences?

With much typing on a battered keyboard, Conor O’Shea, Irish tour guide and hero of my first book, The Tour, came into being.

Sad to say, the editors of big publishing houses didn’t love him as much as I did. In fact they just ignored him, and me. So, assuming they knew best, I went back to my academic specialty, Irish women during World War II.

Ireland is full of strong rebel women. I drew inspiration from them and instead of slaving over an academic paper that few people would ever read, I decided to use my research to write another novel, this time set in World War II. All I had learned was too interesting to keep to myself, and as a fan of learning through fiction, I thought why not see if people would be interested to do the same? My second novel, So Much Owed, was born. 

This time, I didn’t talk to the big publishers. I did it myself.

Through lots of trial and error, I found an audience. They wanted more books. So I wrote more, published more. My readers told their friends. (Thank you.) My audience grew beyond anything I could ever have imagined. And the rest is history. Or perhaps I should say, the rest is historical fiction!

And now?

Now, I write full-time. Which means I sit at home in my pyjamas, surrounded by empty tea cups and crumbs, making up stories about my passions. Ireland. Families. How ordinary people react to extraordinary times. And the warmth, strength, love and humanity which connects and inspires us all.

I’m married to a lovely fella, and have four children, a boy and three girls. The older two are out in the world, adulting as they say, and the younger two are still at home, driving me nuts and lighting up my life with joy and laughter.  I’m accompanied in my work most days by a pair of cute but clueless micro-dogs called Scrappy and Scoobi and a cat who doesn’t trust me called Turtle. 

I hope you enjoy reading my books at least half as much as I enjoy writing them.

Jean