JILL CLOUGH
LAKE DISTRICT AUTHOR
JILL'S NOVELS ARE AVAILABLE TO BUY FROM AMAZON ON E-BOOK AND FROM WATERSTONES IN PRINT
JILL CLOUGH
Author and Educator
Jill says she's been writing "pretty much since I was in the cot". She took her first degree in English and then became a secondary-school teacher – "as a stopgap until I got my writing career going!" But she fell in love with teaching, and ended up becoming a leading headteacher, first in a top boarding school in Surrey and then an independent day school in London. From here, she put aside what had come to feel like ‘the easy life’ to take over a Brighton state school in special measures, and went into battle on behalf of the teenagers that society tries to discount, or pretends not to notice. She somehow also found time to raise three children and do a PhD at Hull (where she knew poet Philip Larkin). After moving to the Lake District she took up her writing in earnest, doing another PhD (phew!), this time in Creative Writing at Newcastle. Morph was her first published novel (2019), and she's published two more since – Anna & the Snake Queen (2020) and If Dreams Should Die (2022). She'll be publishing her fourth novel in 2023.
WE REALLY LOVE YOUR BOOK!
"I have just finished reading Anna and the Snake Queen to my children, after heaving read it myself a few months ago. We live in France, but I found the book on sale in a café in the Lake District a couple of years ago and the cover and blurb were intriguing to me as a lover of fantasy/real world cross over.
My children both really loved your book. It was a useful platform to talk about families who are struggling with abuse. I felt your book was well pitched. I wondered if my daughter would be too young for the subject matter, but both children really engaged with the characters, and it allowed them to ask questions about and discuss subjects that are often avoided or not encountered in everyday life.
I am pleased we read this together as a family, I hope it will encourage them to talk to us if they ever have worries along similar lines. It’s also good to have an early introduction to ‘alarm bells’ in relationships – what makes a healthy relationship, this goes for both friendships and romantic.
As soon as we finished the book, they asked if there was another one. I was pleased to discover on your website that there is a sequel available. Wishing you all the best for 2026 and thank you for an interesting and thought-provoking read!
Lucy, reader, JANUARY 2026
