“The beautiful, provocative prose and dangerous, quirky protagonist mark Ashworth as a writer to watch.”
Publisher’s Weekly
“Ashworth evokes a damaged mind with the empathy and confidence of Ruth Rendell.”
The Times
“An intense and intriguing novel that never quite lets the reader get comfortable… in a gripping, ever-darkening narrative.”
Jenny Diski
“An impressive debut that will remind some of the work of Patricia Highsmith. A nasty, but tough-to-put-down portrait of a sociopath.”
Kirkus
“…who wouldn’t kill for a comic gift like Jenn Ashworth’s?”
The Guardian
Cold Light is the dark tale of three fourteen-year-old girls and a volatile combination of lies, jealousy and perversion that ends in tragedy. Blackly funny and with a surreal edge to its portrait of a northern English town, Jenn Ashworth's gripping novel captures the intensity of girls' friendships and the dangers they face in a predatory adult world they think they can handle. And it shows just how far that world is willing to let sentiment get in the way of the truth.
Annie is hoping for a clean slate, but there's something familiar about the boy next door - she's convinced she's seen him somewhere before. Obese, lonely and undeterred by her target's hostile girlfriend, she searches for guidance by obsessively studying self-help literature and romance novels. Though Annie struggles to repress a murky history of violence, secrets and sexual mishaps her past is never too far behind her, finally shattering her denial in a compelling and bloody climax.
Latest News 
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Where it Comes From
Taking a lot from my reading, which has skittered about recently. Slowly working through the stories of John Cheever – and after being sidetracked by Flannery O’Connor and some musings on redemptive acts of violence and the grotesque more
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Nice Things
The Lancashire Writing Hub has recently published two reviews – one of Cold Light by John Rutter, and one of A Kind of Intimacy by Daisy Baldwin. Learn This Phrase has also reviewed both books recently – A more
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Lancashire Day
I’m going to be at Lancaster Library next week to help celebrate Lancashire Day – details below. To book a ticket, contact the library here. Jenn Ashworth is a Preston born novelist – her first novel, A Kind more
