Belinda Jones (20 December 1967 – 1 December 2024) was an English writer.
Biography
Jones was born in
Royal Tunbridge Wells
Royal Tunbridge Wells (formerly, until 1909, and still commonly Tunbridge Wells) is a town in Kent, England, southeast of Central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the Weald, High Weald, whose sand ...
, Kent to parents Pamela (née Gwyther) and Trefor Jones.
She grew up in
Exeter
Exeter ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and the county town of Devon in South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol.
In Roman Britain, Exeter w ...
, Devon, and studied at the
London College of Printing
The London College of Communication is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London. Its origins are in education for the printing and retail industries; it now specialises in media-related subjects including advertising, animation ...
. Her first job was on the children's comic, ''
Postman Pat
''Postman Pat'' is a British stop motion animated television series, animated children's television series first produced by Woodland Animations. The series follows the adventures of Pat Clifton, a Mail carrier, postman who works for the Royal ...
''.
At the age of 20, she moved on to become a
feature writer
A feature story is a piece of non-fiction writing about news covering a single topic in detail. A feature story is a type of soft news, primarily focused on entertainment rather than a higher level of professionalism. The main subtypes are the ...
on ''
Woman's World
''Woman's World'' is an American supermarket weekly magazine with a circulation of 1.6 million readers. Printed on paper generally associated with tabloid publications and priced accordingly, it concentrates on short articles about subjects suc ...
''. She spent four years working on ''
More!
''More!'' was a fortnightly, later weekly, women's fashion magazine and associated website published on Tuesdays in the United Kingdom by Bauer London Lifestyle. It included celebrity news, high street fashion, and sex tips. The magazine was pu ...
'' magazine as a feature writer.
She has had work published in ''
Elle
Elle may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* Elle (magazine), ''Elle'' (magazine), a fashion publication
** Elle Style Awards
* Elle (India), ''Elle'' (India), the Indian edition
* Elle (film), ''Elle'' (film), a 2016 French film
* ''Elle: ...
'', ''
Empire
An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...
'',
''
FHM
''FHM'' (For Him Magazine) was a printed British multinational men's lifestyle magazine that was published in several countries. It contained features such as the ''FHM'' 100 Sexiest Women in the World.
The final printed issue of British ''F ...
'', ''
Bliss
BLISS is a system programming language developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) by W. A. Wulf, D. B. Russell, and A. N. Habermann around 1970. It was perhaps the best known system language until C debuted a few years later. Since then, C ...
'', ''Company'', and ''
Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan may refer to:
Internationalism
* World citizen, one who eschews traditional geopolitical divisions derived from national citizenship
* Cosmopolitanism, the idea that all of humanity belongs to a single moral community
* Cosmopolitan ...
''. In 1997 she moved to
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
, but later returned to the UK where she wrote her successful first novel, ''Divas Las Vegas''.
Her second novel was ''I Love Capri''.
In 2009 she switched publisher from the Arrow imprint of
Random House
Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...
to
Hodder.
Jones was the co-founder of
Notting Hill Press
Notting Hill Press, founded in 2012 by authors Michele Gorman,Joyce Lamb"Discover the best of British chick lit/rom-com" Happy Ever After – ''USA Today'', 3 June 2013. Belinda Jones and Talli Roland, was a British book publisher.
Notting Hil ...
with authors Talli Roland and
Michele Gorman
Michele Gorman is an American-born British author.
Gorman is represented by Hardman & Swainson. Her debut, ''Single in the City'', was published by Penguin Books; Gorman has now published more than a dozen books with Notting Hill Press in the ...
.
Her novels mainly fall into the
women's fiction
Women's fiction is an umbrella term for women-centered books that focus on women's life experience that are marketed to female readers, and includes many mainstream novels or women's rights books. It is distinct from Women's writing in English, wo ...
or "
chick lit
"Chick lit" is a term used to describe a type of popular fiction targeted at women. Widely used in the 1990s and 2000s, the term has fallen out of fashion with publishers, with numerous writers and critics rejecting it as inherently sexist. Nove ...
" categories, and usually combine romance and travel.
''On the Road to Mr. Right'' is an autobiographical travelogue.
Jones died on 1 December 2024 after a short battle with cancer.
[
]
Bibliography
* 2001 – ''Divas Las Vegas''Skyhorse
Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. is an American independent book publishing company founded in 2006 and headquartered in New York City, with a satellite office in Brattleboro, Vermont.
History
The current president and publisher is founder Tony Ly ...
)
References
External links
Official Site
Penguin Random House profile
Hodder author profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Belinda
1967 births
Living people
Alumni of the London College of Printing
English women novelists
People from Royal Tunbridge Wells
English writers