Jean Fullerton

Winner of Harry Bowling Prize 2006

Jean Fullerton is a native Londoner and was born in the East End within the sound of Bow Bells. Until she was five her family lived in Wapping, alongside the Thames, and then moved to Stepney. She is a trained nurse and teaches healthcare and nursing. Jean's husband is a Church of England vicar, and his parish includes the site of the 2012 Olympic Games. She has three daughters.

'I started writing five years ago after I attended a stress management course. It recommended that I combat work stress by doing something which I had always wanted to do. Since reading Katharine by Anya Seton when I was fourteen, I had been hooked on history and historical romances. I had always wanted to write an historical romance, so I started.

I joined the Romantic Novelists’ Association, since when I have been learning everything I can about the craft of writing. After my first RNA conference in 2002, I knew that writing was no longer just a hobby: being published has been my professional goal.'

My hard work was rewarded this year when my novel, Cutlasses and Caresses, was accepted for publication by Triskelion. So far, though, unti the acceptance of my novel by Orion, the high point of my career has been winning The Harry Bowling Prize.

Writing for me is about creating stories that will fire the imagination and characters with whom readers of all ages will fall in love.

In my other life I am a qualified nurse and I work as a Senior Lecturer with London South Bank University where I teach nursing and health studies.

Titles: Cutlasses & Caresses, Midnight Marriage (Triskelion) No Cure For Love, A Glimpse At Happiness (Orion)

No Cure For Love

Ellen O'Casey, an Irish Catholic immigrant, is struggling to support her ailing mother, her teenage daughter and herself. Washing other people's laundry in the day, and singing in bawdy pubs at night, Ellen is determined to make a better life for her family by saving enough for the passage to New York where the rest of her extended family have already emigrated. But Danny Donovan, a local gangster and the landlord of the pubs where Ellen sings, intends to make her his mistress. A widow in her late 20s, Ellen has refused to let another man in her life, least of all the brutish Danny, whose advances she doggedly resists. But when Ellen catches the eye of the new doctor in town, Robert Munroe, an intense rivalry is formed between the doctor and Danny. For not only are Robert's feelings for Ellen reciprocated, but the ambitious doctor also intends to investigate the appalling living conditions of the local community and Danny's own hand in it. But as Ellen and Robert become closer and aim to bring an end to Danny's reign of terror, their own chance at happiness seems suddenly to be at stake...

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 "Thank you, thank you, thank you, Hilary."

                                                     Jean Fullerton