Jennie Godfrey

Author

Jennie Godfrey is a British author whose novels set in the Yorkshire of the 1970s and 1980s have won wide acclaim for their warmth, emotional depth, and vivid evocation of a particular time and place. Her fiction draws on her own upbringing to capture the texture of working-class northern English life with honesty, humour, and... affection. Godfrey was raised in West Yorkshire in a mill-working family, and the landscape, culture, and community of her childhood run through everything she writes. After a long career in the corporate world, she gave it up in 2020 to build a life around books. She now writes full-time and works part-time as a bookseller, living in the Somerset countryside. The List of Suspicious Things (2024) was her debut novel — set in 1979 Yorkshire against the backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper investigation, it follows two young girls who create their own list of suspects and stumble into a world of adult secrets and danger. The novel was a number one Sunday Times bestseller and a USA Today bestseller, praised for its evocation of childhood, its emotional honesty, and its portrayal of a community living in fear. The Barbecue at No. 9 is her second novel, set in the summer of 1985 as the residents of a suburban close prepare a neighbourhood barbecue to watch Live Aid — another warm, perceptive, and emotionally rich story about community, secrets, and the bonds between neighbours. Godfrey writes with the eye of someone who remembers exactly what it felt like to be young in a particular place and time, and her novels capture the textures of everyday life — the music, the food, the conversations, the fears — with precision and love. The audiobook editions of Godfrey's novels bring her Yorkshire settings and characters warmly to life. Her books and audiobooks are perfect for anyone who loves fiction that is rooted in place, rich in character, and full of heart. Read more Show less