Jelly Cooper: Alien
Preface

Jelly Cooper was written by twenty-something me for fourteen-year-old me. Too old for Enid Blyton and Nancy Drew but too young for Stephen King (so the librarian said), I would stand in front of the teenager section in a semi-desperate trance, trying to replace something a bit action, a bit sci-fi with a strong central female character. Something a bit kooky and kick ass.

I spent a lot of time standing in front of those six shelves, scanning titles, reading blurbs.

Though the library remains, times have changed. The teenage section is now dubbed ‘Young Adult’ and is massive. Harry Potter started it and Twilight took it stratospheric. There are lots and lots of books out there for fourteen year olds, and particularly fourteen year old girls.

But, do you know what? I think that I’d still stand in front of that section in a semi-desperate trance trying to replace something that I wanted to read. Something with a main character that’s a bit gobby, a lot feisty and a tad more recognisable to me. Not perfect by any stretch, but powerful in her own way.

So, in what was a completely selfish endeavour, I wrote Jelly Cooper. She’s the fourteen year old girl that I wanted to read about when I was fourteen.

I hope you like her.