• Facebook
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter
Contact The Writing Coach today

The Writing Coach

Literary Consultancy and Coaching for Writers from Jacqui Lofthouse

  • Home
  • About The Writing Coach
    • Meet The Business Team
    • Testimonials
    • Novels by Jacqui Lofthouse
    • Media and Journalism
  • Services
    • Coaching and Mentoring for writers
    • Coaching Fees
    • Literary Consultancy
    • Literary Consultancy Fees
    • The Ultimate Literary Coaching Programme
    • Coaching for Poets
    • Proofreading and Copyediting
    • Online Writing Course
    • Get Black on White: A Guide to Productivity and Confidence for Writers
  • Membership
  • Workshops
    • The ‘Writer of Impact’ Workshops
    • Developing your Novel or Memoir Course
  • People
    • Meet the Team
    • Meet The Business Team
    • Clients
    • Recommendations
  • Blog
    • Archives
    • Popular Posts
  • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Cookie Policy
  • Clients Area
    • Members Login
    • New Client Area (Literary Consultancy)
    • Literary Agent Submissions

Novels by Jacqui Lofthouse

I have been writing novels since 1990. My first is still in manuscript form under my bed but four more have since been published. I love to hear from readers and would be delighted to hear your responses to the books. I’m also happy to travel to book clubs and meet readers directly, so do get in touch if you’re interested in an author visit.

The Temple of Hymen

(Hamish Hamilton/Penguin 1995/6)

“A very impressive book… a superbly recreated historical period and a passionate investigation into femininity, all wrapped up in a mysterious and well-paced narrative.” – Jonathan Coe

The Temple of Hymen, Jacqui Lofthouse

‘The Temple of Hymen’ – Affiliate link

In London’s Adelphi, during the reign of King George III, Dr James Graham – quack physician and electricity enthusiast – opens his Temple to Health and Fertility. His Goddess of Youth and Health is Emilia Beaumont. She believes herself to be a Devil Child, the cause of her mother’s death and catalyst of her father’s, and enters the Temple to purify herself. Enthralled by the perfections of the Peacock Lady, repulsed by the foppish Lord Smellie and attracted to rake Lord Vermilion, the Temple becomes Emilia’s sanctuary – and also proves her undoing. Jacqui Lofthouse’s accomplished first novel, set in a time of tumult in London, with the anticipation of revolution across the channel, reveals the diseased underbelly of a duplicitous society eager to celebrate purity and beauty whilst disguising corruption behind facades of paint and powder.

“A remarkable, often beautiful and startling piece of writing. A considerable achievement.”– John Mortimer

“Deceptive; entertaining and unusual” – Louis de Bernieres

To order The Temple of Hymen from Amazon click here (affiliate link)

Bluethroat Morning

(Bloomsbury 2000)

“A thriller full of twists and turns that keeps the reader guessing. Every word is magical, almost luminous.” – Daily Mail

Bluethroat Morning, Jacqui Lofthouse

‘Bluethroat Morning’ – Affiliate link

Alison Bliss, world-famous model and author of critically acclaimed Sweet Susan, walks into the sea on a ‘bluethroat morning’. In death she becomes a greater icon than in life, and the Norfolk village of Glaven, where she spent her final days, is soon a place of pilgrimage. Six years later her husband Harry, a school teacher, is still haunted by her suicide and faithful to her memory. Then he meets nineteen-year-old Helen and they begin an intense affair. But their liaison is darkened by the past. Harry is attracted by Helen’s uncanny resemblance to Arabella – his ancestor’s second wife – whose story inspired Alison’s final work. Not much was known about Arabella, except that she had drowned herself in the sea at Glaven, her hometown. Fascinated by her photograph, Alison had travelled to the Norfolk village only mysteriously to follow in Arabella’s tragic footsteps.

Propelled by their affair, Harry returns with Helen to the scene of his wife’s death. There they meet ninety-eight year old Em Higham who holds the key to both Arabella and Alison’s stories. With the media circling, Harry discovers a tale that has been generations in the making and at whose centre may lie the reason for Alison’s suicide. As he pieces together the past and confronts his own pain, Harry discovers he must relive history to truly understand it.

Jacqui Lofthouse has written a subtle mystery, layered with literary resonance, that explores the often troubled relationship between women and their writing. Suffused with the atmosphere of the Norfolk landscape, this is a haunting, compelling novel.

“There are many elements to savour in this novel: the intertwining of past and present; the struggle to write and the responsibility of writing about others’ lives …. Best of all, Lofthouse has a fine eye for the bleak Norfolk landscape and how it both reflects and affects characters’ moods.” – Tracy Chevalier

“A classic tale of longing” – Time Out

To order Bluethroat Morning from Amazon click here (affiliate link)

Boundaries Road – Een Stille Verdwijining

(de Bezige Bij 2005)

Jacqui Lofthouse’s Bluethroat Morning became a bestseller. This novel is certain to repeat that success. An extremely good read. A well structured story with two suspenseful story lines that intertwine in an excellent strong plot.
– The Dutch Library Service

Boundaries Road is a subtle literary thriller, published in Dutch as Een Stille Verdwijning. It explores the art of living and loving, motherhood, secrets and betrayal. As a teenager, Kate wanted to be an artist, living gloriously and with passion like her school friends Carrie and Seth. Now she is married to a nice, ordinary man and the mother of a demanding little boy. When by chance, on a tube platform, she sees her old friend Carrie – now a missing person – her life is thrown into turmoil. She gets in touch with Carrie’s eccentric parents and her old lover, Seth, a down-and-out cellist. As she unravels the mystery of Carrie’s disappearance, her feelings for Seth are reawakened. But will she leave her husband and child for an uncertain life with her teenage sweetheart? Een Stille Verdwijning is not only an exciting thriller, it addresses profound issues: ambition, marriage and motherhood. Where is true happiness to be found? Is it possible to live without betraying yourself or others or is betrayal inherent to adult life? Can we remain faithful to our ideals or should we be realistic and conform? As in Bluethroat Morning, Lofthouse weaves an intriguing story that seizes the reader by the throat and does not release until the very end.

The Modigliani Girl (Blackbird Books 2015)

“A deceptively light satire on the modern writing and publishing world.”

The Modigliani Girl, Jacqui Lofthouse

‘The Modigliani Girl’ – Affiliate link

Anna Bright never wanted to write a novel. At least, that’s what she tells herself. But a chance encounter with a famous novelist and a surprise gift of an art book cut a chink in Anna’s resolve. The short, tragic life of Modigliani’s mistress, Jeanne Hébuterne, becomes an obsession and before she knows it, she has enrolled on a creative writing course, is writing about a fictional Jeanne and mixing with the literati.

As her novel grows and takes on a life of its own, Anna feels her own life becoming increasingly irrelevant. She is absorbed by the story of Jeanne, who committed suicide aged 19 following the artist’s death, jumping from a high window in Paris, pregnant with his child. When Anna is invited to take part in a televised literary competition, hosted by an unscrupulous writing guru, she agrees, but later regrets her choice. Under the gaze of the camera, she has become part of a TV circus; unlike the Bohemian Jeanne, she has sold out. Will she manage to save her sanity and her relationship, before she becomes a by-product of the literary world?

“An unusual page turner of a novel that dares to be a bit different. I really warmed to the character of Anna, as she faces that dilemma faced by woman writers since time began – how to have ‘a room of one’s own’.” – ‎Louise McIvor, Writer and Creative Writing Tutor in Open Learning Dept, Queen’s University, Belfast

“This is a beautifully written novel (and I mean that in every sense of the word)… an unusual, fascinating and multi-layered novel.” – Pete Barber on BigAl’s Books and Pals

To order The Modigliani Girl from Amazon, click here (affiliate link)

Read Jacqui’s article: Modigliani’s Muse: the evolution of a novel

 

 

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

Receive Jacqui's free ebook Get Black on White: 30 Days to Productivity and Confidence for writers.

Bluethroat Morning – New Edition

‘A thriller full of twists and turns that keeps the reader guessing. Every word is magical, almost luminous.’
– The Daily Mail

Buy the book

About The Writing Coach

Jacqui Lofthouse

The Writing Coach was founded in 2005 by the novelist Jacqui Lofthouse. An international mentoring and development organisation for writers, it is also an online home for writers, somewhere you can find advice, information, motivation and most of all encouragement for your writing work ... read more

The Modigliani Girl

Anna Bright never wanted to write a novel. At least, that’s what she tells herself. But a chance encounter with a famous novelist and a surprise gift of an art book cut a chink in Anna’s resolve. The short, tragic life of Modigliani’s mistress, Jeanne Hébuterne, becomes an obsession and before she knows it, she has enrolled on a creative writing course, is writing about a fictional Jeanne and mixing with the literati.

Buy the book

Recent Posts

  • Our Charity Literary Event for War Child
  • Inside Story – The Writing Coach Membership
  • Michelle Graham Taylor and The Ghost Of A Lie
  • The Writing Life of PD Viner, Crime Writer and Crime Writing Mentor
  • An interview with author Bryony Pearce

Read our most popular posts

Read our most popular posts

The following posts are particularly useful for writers and include advice, ideas and inspiration...read more

Search

✨Join us this Saturday for our Workshop "Writer' ✨Join us this Saturday for our Workshop "Writer's Devotion"✨

If you are a writer who desires to connect deeply to your writing work – to understand your motivation and utilise it so that you are truly drawn to your writing desk – our online workshop on Saturday 7th May “Writer’s Devotion” is perfect for you. 📚

🖋📖 This workshop will support you as you commit to your writing in an entirely new way. In our time together, we’ll examine our individual relationship with our writing work and we’ll consider how we can become more connected with our writing, so that we write with a sense of ease and flow. 

✨ The first workshop ‘Writer’s Devotion’ covers:
• The full blueprint relating to Mindset as a writer
• How to leverage your unique writing purpose
• Developing deep self-belief that will sustain your practice
• Practical steps to enable you to commit to your writing
• How to develop a writing ritual
• Knowing we are working on the ‘right’ project
• How to use these tools to become a serious writer
• Resilience as a writer
• Commitment to your craft
• Q & A with Jacqui Lofthouse

I would love to meet you there! You can discover more about our follow up workshops on Writer's Alchemy and Writer's Connection here too... ✨

Link in profile

#writingcoach #writingworkshop #amwriting #writinglife #writinghabits #writingritual #writersofinstagram
We love these sketches of our ‘Fragile Borders,F We love these sketches of our ‘Fragile Borders,Fragile Bodies’ event last Friday by our Founder @jacquilofthouse’s husband, live-illustrator @davidlewiscartoons.

It was such a fascinating evening with Miranda Gold, @alicejolly_  @ana.sefer and #FranLock @sunseekerspoetry raising £780 which we will be donating to @warchilduk 

#literature #liveillustration #visualiser #graphicfacilitation #warchild #literaryevents #tintabernacle
We’re thrilled to welcome @annasianjeffersonauth We’re thrilled to welcome @annasianjeffersonauthor to our team - she is a qualified coach, published author, playwright and strategic thinker. Who will be her first client via us, I wonder? 

 “Anna is a fiction writer and playwright. She has written for stage and screen since 2005. She has had two novels published with Orion, Winging It and Nailing It and is currently working on her third novel. She is the founder and co-director of Broken Leg Theatre and has written and toured five plays. Anna is an experienced workshop leader and facilitator. She is Co-Director of Writing Around the Kids. The project enables mothers of young children to write creatively, working in partnership with regional museums and a network of published female authors.

As a trained Life Coach with Relation Dynamics 1st, Anna incorporates coaching into her practice. Anna works part-time as Theatre Relationship Manager at Arts Council England and lives in Brighton with her husband and two children.”

#lifecoaching #writing #writingcommunity #writerssupportingwriters #authorssupportingauthors #writingcoach
Posted @withregram • @ana.sefer Thanks so much t Posted @withregram • @ana.sefer Thanks so much to everyone who came to Fragile Borders, Fragile Bodies on Friday, which raised £780 for #warchild Illuminating discussion and great readings from @alicejolly_  Fran Lock, Miranda Gold and myself :) .. beautifully chaired by @jacquilofthouse 
And what a wonderful venue The Tin Tabernacle Church in Kilburn is!
We are really looking forward to tomorrow's event We are really looking forward to tomorrow's event 'Fragile Borders, Fragile Bodies', at The Tin Tabernacle church in London at 6.30pm. 

This week we wanted to introduce our guest speakers who will be joining us tomorrow, and today we'd like to introduce Ana Seferović.

Ana is a poet and writer from Belgrade, interested in the relationship between systems and the individual.  She is especially fascinated by outcasts, particularly the outcast in each and every one of us, because an outcast is where either a system or an individual (or both) are breaking. She has co-authored a radio show and art platform PornoPop, examining sex and body as a battlefield of politics, art, literature and culture.

Find out more about Ana, Fragile Borders, Fragile Bodies and book tickets via the link in our bio. All proceeds will be donated to the charity War Child @warchilduk

In addition, the Laura Kinsella Foundation has generously agreed to double any donations we receive up to a limit of £300.

#RefugeeCrisis #UkraineConflict
Follow on Instagram

Become a Client

We work to support you as you develop a writing life that is engaging, sustainable and productive.

Learn about our Coaching and Mentoring Services for ongoing support of your writing.

We also offer Literary Consultancy for tailored manuscript assessment and a Membership for ongoing classes and community.

Get the Newsletter

Become a subscriber and receive Jacqui's free ebook Get Black on White: 30 Days to Productivity and Confidence for writers.

Copyright © 2022 · The Writing Coach · Privacy Policy · Terms of Service · Design customised by Goburo