Alfie Blackstack
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Everyday Magic | 2020 | Buy |
Nora Breen Investigates Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Murder at Gulls Nest | 2025 | Buy |
| Murder at the Spirit Lounge | 2026 | Buy |
Standalone Novels
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| Himself | 2017 | Buy |
| Mr. Flood’s Last Resort / The Hoarder | 2018 | Buy |
| Things in Jars | 2019 | Buy |
| The Night Ship | 2022 | Buy |
Jess Kidd grew up in London in a large family from County Mayo, Ireland. She returned to education as a mature student, studying English at St. Mary’s University, and went on to teach creative writing across age groups. Her debut novel Himself, set in a rural Irish village where a young man returns to investigate his own origins, announced her as a voice unlike anyone else working in Irish fiction.
Her standalone novels range from Victorian London in Things in Jars, where female detective Bridie Devine hunts a kidnapped child through the city’s grimiest corners, to the dual-timeline historical fiction of The Night Ship, which draws on the real 1629 wreck of the Dutch vessel Batavia. She also writes for younger readers, with Everyday Magic following nine-year-old Alfie Blackstack as he discovers his aunts are witches.
Her Nora Breen Investigates series, launched in 2025, takes a different tone again: warmly funny cozy mysteries set in 1950s coastal Kent, featuring a former nun with a sharp eye for trouble. Murder at Gulls Nest introduced the series and Murder at the Spirit Lounge followed in 2026.