Jean Fullerton
Agent: Kate Burke
Assistant: Sian Ellis-Martin
Bio: Jean was born and bred in the overcrowded streets surrounding London Docks where her family have lived since 1825. Being born within the sound of Bow Bells, she’s a true cockney who grew up in what was then the working-class dockland community in Wapping and Stepney, East London. All her published books are set in the streets and alleyways she roamed as a child.
Jean worked for 30 years as a community nurse in East London, starting as a staff nurse and finishing as a university lecturer in Health Studies at London South Bank University.
Jean’s Ration Book series is published by Corvus, whilst her East London Nurses series and Victorian East London Nolan series are published by Orion. Her first memoir, A CHILD OF THE EAST END, was published by Corvus in August 2022.
Bookouture will publish the third book in the East End Girls series, A WARTIME PROMISE FOR THE EAST END GIRLS, in May 2026.
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A WARTIME PROMISE FOR THE EAST END GIRLS
Historical, 275 pages, Bookouture, May 2026
East London, 1943: As air raid sirens wail, can the East End Girls join forces to protect their city and the people they love?
Nell Reilly’s blonde curls and piercing blue eyes might look angelic, but she is ready to fight with everything she has for a better future. Brought up in London’s tough East End, she is fiercely determined to keep the promise she made to her little sister Jo to build a new life for them one day. Until a chance meeting changes everything…
Absorbed in her work with the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, the last thing Nell is looking for is love, but tall, broad-shouldered Tom Hunter stops her in her tracks. Tom is her wayward brother Frank’s new right-hand man in his black-market operations, and Nell knows from bitter experience the risks of falling for a man like that. But when she witnesses his unexpected kindness and sees how he cares for Jo, she realises that Tom has made an impression she can’t forget, no matter how hard she tries…
But Tom has a secret, one he’s finding harder and harder to keep. And when Nell finally discovers that he is an undercover police officer, she also learns something that makes her heart stop: his cover is blown and he’s in terrible danger.
As London prepares for another night of air raids, Nell races through the blackout to find Tom and warn him. Can she reach him in time to save his life? And as bombs crash down over the East End, will their love survive to fight another day?
FELICITY’S WAR
Saga, 448 pages, Corvus, July 2024
1941. Whilst London is battered by air raids, Felicity "Fliss" Carmichael has troubles of her own. Still reeling from catching her fiancé cheating, she flees to her childhood home at St. Winifred's Rectory, reuniting with her sister Prue and Hester Katz, a Jewish doctor sheltering there.
Though heartbroken, Fliss finds purpose again as a journalist. On assignment, she crosses paths with Detective Inspector Timothy Wallace, who shares her passion for truth and justice - though not her political beliefs. Despite their differences, an instant spark ignites between them.
But their love faces twists and turns ahead. While Fliss stumbles upon a crime and bravely intervenes, Tim's investigation into black market racketeering puts him in mortal danger...
A CHILD OF THE EAST END
Memoir, 336 pages, Corvus, August 2022
One of my first East London memories is lying in bed, listening to the low boom of the barges as they nudged each other on the Thames, just half a mile away from our estate...
Life in Cockney London was tough in the post-war years. The government's broken promises had led to a chronic housing shortage, rampant crime and families living in squalor. But one thing prevailed: the unbeatable spirit of the East End, a tight-knit community who pulled through the dark times with humour and heart.
Drawing on both family history and her own memories of growing up in the 1950s and '60s, as well as her working life as a district nurse and local police officer, Jean Fullerton vividly depicts this fascinating part of London - from tin baths, to jellied eels, to tigers in a Wapping warehouse.
A RATION BOOK VICTORY
Saga, 368 pages, Corvus, May 2022
In the final days of war, only love will pull her through . . .
Queenie Brogan wasn't always an East End matriarch. Many years ago, before she married Fergus, she was Philomena Dooley, a daughter of Irish Travellers, planning to wed her childhood sweetheart, Patrick Mahone. But when tragedy struck and Patrick's narrow-minded sister, Nora, intervened, the lovers were torn apart.
Fate can be cruel, and when Queenie arrives in London she finds that Patrick Mahone is her parish priest, and that the love she had tried to suppress flares again in her heart.
But now in the final months of WW2, Queenie discovers Father Mahone is dying and must face losing him forever. Can she finally tell him the secret she has kept for over fifty years or will Nora once again come between them?
And if Queenie does decide to finally tell Patrick, could the truth destroy the Brogan family?