I grew up in the countryside near Oxford, where I spent most of my time flouncing about in floaty dresses, drinking too much in fields by the river, and being melodramatic about boys.

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I left to study English Literature at Newcastle University, eventually writing a Ph.D. on mid-twentieth-century romance novels. Some of my research was discussed on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour in 2020.

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I've spent more than a decade working in bookshops, including for Waterstones, Blackwell's, and the London independent Heywood Hill, where - as well as looking after the shop's online communications - I was a personal bookseller. 

 

I now live on the Oxford canal with my husband, cat and daughter.