Jacqui Hazell

Award-winning author Jacqui Hazell was born near Portsmouth to an Irish mother and an English father. Brought up on the south coast of England, she studied textile design at Nottingham before moving to London where her first full-time job was as a secretary at Buckingham Palace. Jacqui has also worked as a greetings cards designer, a journalist, a magazine editor and a film extra. Jacqui's YA novel, My Life as a Bench, won the International Rubery Book of the Year 2017 and the Carousel Aware Prize Best Young Adult Book and her psychological thriller, I Came to Find a Girl, was named one of the best crime novels of 2015 by the Telegraph and shortlisted for the Virginia Prize. She has an MA in creative writing from Royal Holloway, University of London, and she lives in London.