Jessica Chambers — Author of Contemporary Women’s Fiction

About Me

From the moment I could walk, my parents realised there was something wrong with my sight. I was forever tripping over things left lying around on the floor and sitting too close to the television. When I was five years old, after numerous tests (many of which were distinctly unpleasant), the doctors diagnosed me with Retinitis Pigmentosa, a degenerative eye condition caused by having either too much or too little pigment at the back of the eye.

I began my education at a mainstream primary school, but, as my sight grew progressively worse, the teachers could no longer offer the specialist support I needed to succeed. Thus, at the age of nine, I started at a weekly boarding school for the visually impaired in Kent. The nine years I spent at Dorton were some of the happiest of my life. During my time there I tried my hand at horse riding, archery and water skiing (with varying degrees of success), and had my first bitter/sweet dose of heartbreak. When I left the college in 2000, I did so with several lifelong friends, as well as top grade A-levels in Psychology, English Language and Law. I was also fortunate enough to meet my partner of the past eleven years.

Books have always been my passion, both reading and writing them, and, clichéd as it sounds, I can’t remember a time in my life when I haven’t wanted to be a writer. I write a mixture of women’s fiction, ranging from light-hearted romances to mysteries with a darker flavour. It’s been a long and often difficult road of endless rejections and rewrites, but finally, in the autumn of 2009, I struck lucky.

Voices on the Waves, my debut novel of love, heartache and self-discovery set against the beautiful landscape of rural Cornwall, has been published by Red Rose Publishing.