About me.

I’m Jessica Stanley, an Australian novelist living in London.

I grew up in Melbourne, studied in Canberra, and worked in journalism, on the set of the TV show Neighbours, for the trade union movement, and in advertising.

Since moving to the UK in 2011, I’ve been working as a freelance copywriter while writing fiction. My Australian first novel A Great Hope was published in 2022.

My new novel Consider Yourself Kissed will be published internationally in Spring/Summer 2025.

I’m now a British citizen (as well as — of course — an Australian one)!

I live in East London with my husband and our three children.

Consider Yourself Kissed (2025)

In the opening pages of my new novel, a man and a woman swap homes for the night and explore each other’s bookshelves. Adam has political diaries and politicians’ memoirs called things like A Journey and My Life, Our Times. Coralie is rebuilding a lifetime’s library of green-spine Viragos after her mother took hers to the dump. They fall in love with each other’s books and almost immediately with each other.

Consider Yourself Kissed is a literary love story set in contemporary East London. It follows Coralie and Adam for a decade of their shared lives, as they build a home and beloved family. All this is set against the backdrop of a turbulent decade in UK politics: Tory austerity, Brexit, Covid, and (throughout, and perhaps worst of all) Boris Johnson. But still, by the end of her thirties, Coralie has almost everything she’s ever wanted. So why is she falling apart?

My inspirational foundation texts include The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst, American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld, The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford, and the Cazalet chronicles – all pull you through the pages, make you laugh and cry, and (despite the darkness of their eras) leave you feeling comforted and known. That’s why I read and love fiction, and why I wrote this book.

Consider Yourself Kissed will be published in 2025.

Early praise for Consider Yourself Kissed.

‘I absolutely loved every moment and didn't want it to end!’ LIANE MORIARTY

‘Clever, joyful, familiar, and so funny’ NINA STIBBE

‘A deeply appealing and winning novel’ MEG WOLITZER

‘So astonishingly clever, but with a core of love. I adored it’ DAISY BUCHANAN

‘Ringingly original and just absurdly good’ CATHERINE NEWMAN

‘I’m annoyed I didn't write this book myself’ MADELEINE GRAY

‘Joyful . . . I loved it!’ GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, Books to Watch in 2025

‘Consider me smitten’ CHRIS POWER

‘I loved it, I loved them, I already know I will read it again’ ELLA RISBRIDGER

‘Sweet and tender’ PANDORA SYKES

‘An exhilarating read, a marvel of a book’ RUMAAN ALAM

‘The platonic ideal of reading experiences!’ LIZZY STEWART

‘A marvel of a book that I will never stop thinking about’ ORE AGBAJE-WILLIAMS

‘Oh, how I loved and empathised with Coralie!’ JENNIE GODFREY

‘I cried when I read the last page... I was bereft that it was over’ CLAIRE DEDERER

‘I was grinning like an idiot for the first forty pages, and crying for the next forty’ EMMA HEALEY

‘A love song to women everywhere’ ANNABEL MONAGHAN

‘A book about falling in love to fall in love with’ LISA OWENS

‘I absolutely raced through this novel. One of those books you’ll want to give all your friends once you’ve finished’ CLAIRE POWELL

‘I was so invested in the story that I became Coralie!’ SANAM MAHLOUDJI

‘A proper grown-up love story’ BETH MORREY

‘Beautiful and life-affirming’ ARAMINTA HALL

Pre-order in Australia/NZ.

Consider Yourself Kissed will be published in Australia by Text Publishing (April 2025) and is available to pre-order now from your local bookshop.

🍒 Readings.

🍒 Booktopia.

🍒 QBD.

🍒 Fullers.

🍒 Amazon.com.au.

Pre-order in the UK.

Consider Yourself Kissed will be published in the UK by Hutchinson Heinemann (May 2025) and is available to pre-order now from your local bookshop.

🍒 Waterstones.

🍒 Foyles.

🍒 Bookshop.org.

🍒 Blackwell’s.

🍒 Amazon.

Pre-order in the United States/Canada

Consider Yourself Kissed will be published in the US by Riverhead (May 2025) and is available to pre-order now from your local bookshop.

🍒 Bookshop.org.

🍒 Barnes & Noble.

🍒 Amazon.

🍒 Powell’s.

🍒 Books-a-Million.

🍒 Target.

🍒 Hudson Booksellers.

🍒 Walmart.

In Canada, Consider Yourself Kissed is published by Doubleday (May 2025)

🍒 Indigo

🍒 Amazon

🍒 Shop Local

Elsewhere.

READ.LOOK.THINK. is my long-running email newsletter for writers and readers. Sent out every three or four weeks, each edition contains links to essays, books, first person writing, recipes, podcasts, interiors and more. Explore the archive and subscribe on Substack.

On Instagram @dailydoseofjess, I share what I’m reading, what I’m working on, and my life in Hackney with my husband and three children. I also have a TikTok! It’s just little snippets and scenes from around Hackney: @consideryourselfkissed. Bluesky is an experiment! Let’s see how it goes! @jessicastanley.co.uk.

My favourite book of all time is Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty, and — before I quit Twitter — my fan account @lollinghurst was featured in The New Yorker.

A Great Hope (2022).

In 2022, my Australian debut novel was published by Picador AU. Set in inner-city Melbourne, A Great Hope is about a family (and love, and politics).

It was called ‘acutely observed’, and a ‘taut examination of a well-off family under great pressure’ in the Sydney Morning Herald; ‘fascinating and insightful’ in the Herald Sun; and ‘thrilling’, ‘ambitious’ and ‘never boring’ in Australian Book Review.

A Great Hope was longlisted for Mark & Evette Moran Nib Literary Award 2022, and shortlisted for the MUD Literary Prize 2023, and is available for sale in Australia.

Contact.

To contact me directly, please use the form to the right (desktop) or below (mobile).

Literary agent: Lizzy Kremer, David Higham Associates.

Film/TV agent: Nicky Lund, David Higham Associates.

Author photograph: Sophie Davidson.