Jenny Brown Associates Debut Writers Over 50 Award in 2025

SARAH DRUMMOND – SOUP

Art heist fiction

The world of prized art opens up from the inside as art restoration expert Amber navigates a confused relationship with her Newcastle gallery boss alongside a dangerous criminal from her past, while trying to keep track of her own forgeries, a ‘borrowed’ Warhol, and her uncertain future.
Sarah Drummond has spent her career in journalism, broadcasting and higher education. She lives in Suffolk. Soup was inspired by visiting an art exhibition when a changeover was underway, and being intrigued by the trust, temptations and vulnerabilities which could be exploited when precious things are in liminal storage.

ALI MORRISON – THE WAKE

Historical mystery

The Wake is a loss story, a love story and a history.  A gathering at a fisherman’s wake in a present day Northern town is attended by his ghost, as the story turns into a funny, chaotic pub-to-pub pursuit in search of answers that can only be found in the past.  The underlying 19th century tale, told through a series of letters, interviews and reports, is based on the very real and tragic trade in young sea fishing apprentices that took place in the 1880s.Ali Morrison was born in Grimsby but now lives in Swansea. She once worked in a fish dock cold store and this story came about after a chance afternoon in a Grimsby fisheries archive.  It grew into a ghost story once Ali read the names of the boys who were lost-  a forgotten piece of northern social history.

SITA SCHUTT – WHORL

Historical crime

Calcutta, 1896. The death of a customs official on a steamship en route to India draws the attention of Inspector Sébastien Rencoque sent to Calcutta to deliver crime scene kits. Furious at being exiled from Paris, Sébastien sees an opportunity: to study an even newer method of identification—the science of fingerprinting, which the Calcutta police have already adopted. On board Sébastien is drawn to Flora Watson, a young woman traveling to India to uncover the truth about her past. Flora’s forensic skills surprise—and impress—the French detective as they find themselves caught up with murder and Bengali revolutionaries.
German born, Sita Schutt lives in London and was inspired by stories of her Anglo-Indian grandmother and an upbringing in France.

MARGHERITA STILL – ALEX ANDERSON IS NOT DEAD

Contemporary fiction

What does it mean to be a good dad, even when you’re dying? Set in an Edinburgh council scheme, solo dad Alex makes elaborate preparations to ensure his children are not put into care after his death. With dark humour, the novel charts how ingenious help comes from unexpected quarters and a group of Sudanese and Iranian refugees.
Margherita Still’s novel is inspired by families she met while teaching, who despite barriers and trauma, demonstrated love and resilience in their daily lives. She grew up in Wishaw as a second-generation immigrant and recently started Edinburgh Sparks, an open mic for prose writers to share their fiction or nonfiction.

CATHERINE STRONG – THE HOSTESS

Psychological thriller

Tokyo: safest city in the world. Unless you’re a rookie spy posing as a hostess … with a psychopath on your trail. Alice Grey, on the run from her past in London, is given the stark choice of deportation or undercover work in a nightclub. When she discovers a vulnerable child hidden at the club, Alice knows something is very wrong. But a killer is following Alice’s every move. Alice vows to save the child. Knowing if she fails, she dies.
Catherine Strong is a journalist and editor living in Somerset. The Hostess is inspired by her experiences living and teaching in Japan, and those of one of her students who was a hostess.

JULIET THOMAS – 31 MILTON ROAD

Crime

Amanda Rivers phones private detective Trinity Grey contending her life is in danger. Why? Because in 1990 she made a last minute decision to buy a mansion with eight acquaintances for £200,000; the deal being, as they each died, they’d leave their stakes to the survivors. Twenty-seven years later and No.31 is worth a vastly-inflated £5 million but three of them have already died young. Amanda believes that a traitor is killing them all one-by-one ‘Agatha-Christie style’ to own the whole house. And she’s up next. Trinity joins forces with life-long family friend, Radiant Cain, to investigate and the Radiant Grey Detective Agency is born.
Juliet Thomas worked in finance and splits her time between Derbyshire and London. She was inspired to write this wondering what if she and her university friends had bought a house together all those years ago.

SUSAN KEMP – GREENWASH

Environmental thriller

Conservation and corruption collide in this thriller set in the Scottish Highlands. Jessie MacInally, a former army intelligence officer, returns to Glen Heughie to visit her father, the estate’s long-serving gamekeeper, now threatened with dismissal by a new absentee landowner. Jessie learns that a golden eagle has been shot and killed in the area, and her father has been wrongly accused. Determined to clear his name, she uncovers a wide, and deadly, wildlife crime gang.
Susan Kemp has worked in film and television and is now a Senior Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh. Her novel is inspired by her working as a beater on a grouse moor, and her love of the outdoors.