Jessica's earlier career was a haphazard one, including stints as foreign newsdesk secretary in London, cook on an Australian outback cattle station, TEFL teacher in Jakarta and interpreter on expedition in Cameroon. She first stumbled into writing as a way of funding a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies, and since then she has written 59 books for Harlequin Mills & Boon's Romance/RIVA series. A multiple finalist and past winner of both a RITA (Christmas Eve Marriage, Best Traditional Romance 2005) and the UK's coveted Romance Prize (now the RoNA Rose Award), Jessica was awarded the National Readers' Choice Award (Traditional category) for her 50th book, Last-Minute Proposal, in 2009 and again in 2010 for Cinderella's Wedding Wish.
Jessica lives in York, a historic city in the north of England, and also writes 'time slip' novels as Pamela Hartshorne.