GOODBYE TO JOSEPHINE COX - ONE OF OUR FAVOURITE AUTHORS

So sad to learn of the passing of one of the loveliest novelists with a huge readership.  Although it was only  in recent years, that I met Josephine at one of our Essex Book Festival events at Wickford Library, I knew she was a firm favourite of so many readers around the world particularly US and Russia. It was a great pleasure to spend an evening with this super prolific author.  What an amazing woman with a personal life and history that was as eventful as the contents of her best selling novels, some sixty titles. 

Born in Blackburn, one of 10 children, Jo wrote more than 60 books that sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. She had started out as a teacher and took up writing in her 40s.  Her first published book, Her Father's Sins, came out in 1988. Kimberley Young, executive Publisher of HarperCollins Fiction, remembered her as "an utter force of nature who inspired all around her".

Josephine will be sadly missed by her huge readership over thirty years.