Jane Green
The Official Home of New York Times Bestselling Author

Rainbow Girl, a new Audio Drama set in the rock star world of 1979, available now!

October 19th, 2022

It’s 1979, the lead guitarist of The Wide Eyed Boys, Eddie Allbright, and his supergroupie model wife, Lissy Ellery are one of the most famous and glamorous rock couples in the world. From the outside, their life looks like a dream, but behind closed doors too many drugs, too many affairs and too much black magic is creating a recipe that will either save them, or destroy them.

An intimate look into the hedonistic life of a seventies rock band and their groupies, Rainbow Girl is for everyone who has ever wondered what it was really like to be with the band.

A stand alone, set in the world of Jane Green’s newest novel, Sister Stardust, Rainbow Girl mixes the glamor of The Rolling Stones with the partying of Studio 54, but can anything stop this marriage ending in a bloody, final mess.

Sponsored by Better Help, the show is available here: Rainbow Girl, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

For a sneak preview head to www.emeraldaudio.net and sign up for Hidden Gems Book Club.

More

Hitting the Road Again!

March 21st, 2022

Come and join me on tour! I’ll be (mostly) travelling with a mini souk – caftans, snake pendants and secret sauce bangles ahoy! Click on the relevant links for tickets and very much hope to see you on the road…

Click on the link for more information on how to buy tickets: Sister Stardust on Tour

More

Sister Stardust is available for pre-order NOW!

July 23rd, 2021

Fifty years ago, Talitha Getty was found dead in her husband’s apartment in Rome.

She had flown there for the weekend from her glorious London house on Cheyne Walk, some say to try and reconcile. At first, it was said to be an overdose of alcohol and barbiturates, but later it was revealed that it was a heroin overdose. There were strange circumstances around her death, the time it took to call a doctor, an ambulance. Heroin possession warranted an

immediate ten-year prison sentence in Italy at the time. Her husband, J. Paul Getty II (the father of the kidnapped boy who had his ear cut off), left Italy that day and never returned.
I have no idea why I have been obsessed with her my entire adult life. Up until a couple of years ago, the obsession was just her style, her beauty, an ethereal quality in her eyes in the famous Patrick Litchfield photographs I had seen (which I now know was because she was completely stoned). Her style was bohemian, eclectic, and utterly hers – she’d wear robes and jewelry from the souk near their palace in Marrakech, and team them with couture from her friend and neighbor, Yves Saint Laurent.

The Rolling Stones spent much time in Marrakech at the palace, particularly Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull.

I spent nine months researching my new novel, which is about a young woman who finds herself swept up in their impossibly glamorous, hedonistic world in Marrakech in the late sixties, not realizing the danger it will put her in.

Going in, I knew only that there was almost nothing known about her. I had to come at it sideways, working from the outside in, reading countless memoirs from people whose paths had crossed with the Gettys.
Sister Stardust comes out in April (and is available for pre-order now). There will be a cover reveal soon (I love the cover. LOVE), but on the anniversary of her death, may she rest in the peace she never found in life.
To Pre-order now:

More

It’s storytime…

March 20th, 2018

Jane Green is sharing the stories from her life. In this video, she’s considering going grey, but wondering how to keep it from her husband…

More

March Book Pick is here for the Jane Green Book Club

March 1st, 2018

Announcing our March book! Our next pick is Cruel Beautiful World by Caroline Leavitt . As with all of our choices, this was one of my ABSOLUTE favorites of last year.

It’s 1969, and sixteen-year-old Lucy is about to run away to live off the grid in rural Pennsylvania, a rash act that will have vicious repercussions for both her and her older sister, Charlotte. As Lucy’s default caretaker for most of their lives, Charlotte’s youth has been marked by the burden of responsibility, but never more so than when Lucy’s dream of a rural paradise turns into a nightmare.

Cruel Beautiful World examines the intricate, infinitesimal distance between seduction and love, loyalty and duty, and explores what happens when you’re responsible for things you cannot fix.

Caroline will be joining me live at my home – hooray – on March 15th at 8pm, where we will be chatting about the book, the writing life, and answering your questions.

She says about the book: When I was 17, a friend of mine was murdered by her much older, more controlling boyfriend–someone she had been with for five years. I never forgot it, but until I was in a controlling relationship of my own years later (Google my story “The Grief Diet,”) I couldn’t understand how someone could stay. I set the novel in 1969 and 1970, the time when the peace and love movement began to turn ugly, when Woodstock turned into Altamont and the Manson murders. The novel is so much about how we yearn to fix things and fix people, but sometimes we cannot, no matter how hard we try. Sometimes all you can do is step back and let life wash over you.

More

On Writing

February 19th, 2018

A little while ago, I had half a novel completed. I had thoroughly enjoyed the first half, but had reached a point where I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen next, and then life got in the way, and it started to feel more and more difficult to sit down and write.

 

I kept coming up with excuses. My life was so busy! There were columns for The Lady that needed to be written! The house was too cold to get out of bed! My hair was the wrong colour! Clearly, my excuses were no longer working, and I needed to make a change.

 

Years ago, before I started writing, I thought that my muse would strike on a daily basis. I imagined writing to be the most deeply romantic of professions, presuming I would leap out of bed from time to time, inspired, spending the rest of the night huddled in front of my computer, typing furiously as the words flowed through my fingertips.

 

There are, admittedly, some days like this, but after twenty three years of writing novels, they are few and far between. Also, it has never happened at night, probably because I like my bed far too much to leave it for anything other than a couple of barking dogs who some children have forgotten to lock inside for the night, and even then, I tend to lie there for at least ten minutes, praying that they will miraculously shut up all by themselves. I do keep a notebook next to my bed, just in case brilliance does strike, but usually, when I read it in the cold light of day, it is nonsensical. Truly. The kind of gobbledegook you can only write when you are actually still half-asleep.

 

What I have learned, after all these years, is that the only way a novel gets written, even when (perhaps especially when) you feel stuck, is to sit down and write it. And so, a few weeks ago I left my house every morning, drove to my office, left my phone (the distraction to end all distractions) in the car, and wrote.

 

I wrote even when I had no idea what I wanted to say. I wrote when I thought my characters had run out of steam. I wrote because writing is my job, and couldn’t procrastinate any longer, and I needed to feel the high of having written, rather than the constant guilt at putting it off.

 

And, as always, the magic happened. The characters woke up, as did I. Their lives got busy, and it became a pleasure, coming in to the office every day, looking forward to seeing what they would do next.

 

Towards the end, I started tearing up, which is when I know I have something good. When I get emotional at something my characters are going through, I know my readers will too, and last Friday, when I finally typed The End, I felt enormously proud of myself for finishing my twentieth novel, even when, at times, it felt like I didn’t know what to say.

 

Of course, the work is only beginning now. I am taking a week away from the manuscript so I can return with slightly fresher eyes, and then the edits will begin. I will read through and check the rhythm of the words, build up one of the characters, move a dramatic plot point to earlier in the book. 

 

But I am almost there, and the having written, even after twenty novels, is just as sweet today as it was all those years ago.

More

New Hobby Means New Gifts to Give

February 7th, 2018

I have started a pottery class. This seems to be de rigeur for women of a certain age. Every time I log on to Instagram or Facebook I see that yet another of my school friends has taken up pottery. My mother has taken up pottery. Seventy percent of the women I know have taken up pottery. For a very long time I fought the urge, but the pull became too strong, and now I have succumbed.

I am very well known for my obsessions, not least because they tend to make their way into my novels. Every time my characters suddenly become jewelers, or candle-makers, or chicken-keepers, you can bet your life it’s because their creator was doing the same thing at the time of writing the novel.

My obsessions do not last long, but they are all-consuming, and I usually produce an astonishing body of work during the brief time they last. When I completed a silversmith course at our local art school, I set up a jewelry studio in the basement of our house, complete with professional work table, soldering equipment, every tool and machine you can think of, used it for one month, then never went in there again.

My candle-making occurred in our kitchen. For around six weeks, it became a candle-making factory, with trays of candles cooling on every surface, and the delicious smell of fig and gardenia filling the air. A few local shops sold the candles, and then I got bored, and moved on to something else. Someone recently told me how upset they were that I stopped, because the scent had become her favorite smell for her house.

And now it is pottery. I have fallen in love with lace-embossed and stamped platters, and as much fun as it is to source them online or visit pottery shops, I would always much rather try my hand at making them myself. The last few weeks have been spent scouring eBay for interesting remnants of lace, and buying authentic Indian stamps that arrive from India wrapped in canvas, the edges sealed with a stocking stitch, then sealed every inch with a proper embossed wax seal. The packaging itself is so gorgeous, it pains me every time to have to unwrap them.

Past experience has taught me that my obsessions are finite, and they are never too long for this world, which means I have to get as much done as possible while I am still interested.

The first lesson was last week. Everyone in the class stood around making a pinch pot. I took the teacher aside and explained I was there to make something specific, and would she mind if I did my own thing. She didn’t mind at all, and so, by the end of the class, everyone else had made one pinch pot, and I had made three platters and a rather nice bowl. I whirled around the studio as if I had taken amphetamines, while my friend, The Scientist, stood there and laughed, for she knows me very well.

This week I continued with three plates, and a mug. I attempted throwing a pot on the wheel, but I decided it would take me too long to become halfway decent, plus it hurt my back.

If you are a friend of mine, there is a massive spoiler in this piece, because I am highly likely to end up with a hundred or so platters and bowls, and you will all be getting them as gifts for the next couple of years. They will be the perfect present to hold all that jewelry I’ve been giving you for the past three…

More

How Much Contour Does One Actually Need?

January 30th, 2018

Part of my adjusting to my new hair color has involved me changing my make-up, which I am realizing is far easier said than done.

I once knew a woman who continued wearing her brunette hair down to her waist, with heavy dark eyes and pale lips, into her seventies. It looked absolutely terrible, but no one had the heart to tell her how dated she looked.

I realize I have essentially been doing my make-up (and my hair) in exactly the same way for years. I will happily adjust my hair color, and I am worried that I am reaching the age where I am beginning to consider going short. Not short short, but shorter. Perhaps a style rather than boring old long hair.  I’m reaching an age where a fringe seems like an awfully good idea. Far less expensive than Botox, and surely just as effective?

My eyebrows were plucked into submission some years ago, and of course have never grown back in quite the same way. I now spend hours with an eyebrow pencil every day. Some days, they look magnificent. On others, I look like Liz Taylor on overdrive, and this is not a good look.

I regularly find myself poring over pictures of the Kardashians, wondering how their eyebrows look like that, and after I dyed my hair back to dark, when everyone told me I needed darker make-up, I found a make-up tutorial on YouTube which promised me that I would look like Kylie Jenner.

Oh reader, this was fun. I spent an hour contouring (the contouring! So much contouring!), blending, dabbing, brushing. I put brown eyeshadow under my cheekbones (one must make do with what one has), and pale above, then blended furiously so I didn’t look like I had been rolling around in a muddy field.

I lightly sketched in my eyebrows so they were perfectly arched, with actual sides (that was the weird bit with the over-plucking – the sides were the only bits that never grew back at all). I added gold sparkly stuff to my eyelids, and drew my lips on with lip liner in a way that made them look bigger and poutier than ever before.

No longer was Cher staring back at me in the mirror. Nor, it has to be said, was a Kardashian. It was me, only much, much more glamorous. My cheekbones were so pronounced I was worried I might cut myself on them. My lips were positively pillow-y, and my eyes were dark and smouldering (helped somewhat by the magnetic lashes that I have now decided are genius).

If only I had the time to do this every day! I almost didn’t wash it all off because I’m quite sure my cheekbones may never look like this again, but I took the obligatory selfie, so I can always remember that I too can look Kardashianesque, with a few spare hours and an awful lot of make-up.

In the meantime, I shall be going back to the make-up I’ve always had, and the hair I’ve always done, and I will pray that it all stays on trend for just a while longer.

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February Book is Here for the Jane Green Book Club

January 25th, 2018

And now, we are announcing our February pick. We will be reading The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin, and Chloe will be joining us live on www.facebook.com/janegreenbookclub on February 15th at 8pm.

It’s 1969 in New York City’s Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children—four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness—sneak out to hear their fortunes.

The prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden-boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in ’80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor post-9/11; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality.

A sweeping novel of remarkable ambition and depth, The Immortalists probes the line between destiny and choice, reality and illusion, this world and the next. It is a deeply moving testament to the power of story, the nature of belief, and the unrelenting pull of familial bonds.

 

 

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The Richard & Judy Book Club

December 27th, 2017

Did I Ever Join The Richard And Judy Book Club?

I did not, but long before the Richard and Judy Book Club was a thing, long before I even became Jane Green, I worked for Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan. I was a young publicist who was burnt out from working in entertainment PR in London, when I got a call from a man I adored, offering me a job as the publicist for the television show This Morning, presented by Richard and Judy.

richard-and-judy-book-club

Richard & Judy Book Club

I jumped at the opportunity, even though I didn’t really know anything about the show, nor, in fact, about Richard and Judy. But I couldn’t think of anything better than a fresh start in a new city, and my boss would be someone I got on incredibly well with. Within two weeks I was packed up and on my way.

I found a large, shabby chic flat in Didsbury, and spent most days driving from Manchester to Liverpool in my little Renault 5, which died so often, the men from the AA and I became friends. I eventually replaced that Renault with a Volkswagen Golf, which turned out to be two cars welded together (a “cut-n’shut” as it’s known in the dodgy car industry), which was in fact the most reliable car I have ever had.

I loved my job. I loved the people I worked with, many of whom are still close friends, twenty five years on. I loved the camaraderie we had, and the laughs we shared. I loved that we were able to sit at one end of the open-plan office smoking ourselves into an early grave, and if anyone complained, we all ignored them.

We were a happy bunch, apart from the fact that my boss, the man who had employed me, turned out to be something of a Jekyll and Hyde. I had thought he was wonderful, but within weeks of me starting I would watch as he routinely picked on one of my colleagues, bullying and abusing them to the point where grown men were almost in tears. I remember being shocked at this behavior from a man I had adored, and – oh how naïve I was – thinking that because we were already friends, it would never happen to me.

The day it happened was the day I stopped loving my job. One day he decided it was time to put me in his firing line, and my life was miserable from thereonin. He stole my ideas and presented them as his own in meetings where I sat there mute, disbelieving. He would regularly phone me in the early hours of the morning, screaming at me for some newspaper story about Richard and Judy that had appeared, that I knew nothing about. He diminished me, mocked me, screamed at me and bullied me, to the point where I would have a Pavlovian reaction every time the phone would ring, terrified it would be him, screaming on the other end.

When “me too” was flying round the internet, I kept quiet. I did not write about the times I have been scared or uncomfortable, the times I have been the victim of inappropriate behavior, sexual or otherwise. But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the time I was bullied mercilessly at the hands of a man who held all the power.

I hope things change. I have no idea what happened to that man, but I hope Karma has done its job, and that wherever he is, he may have changed. I wouldn’t write me too, because – and I fully support all the women who did – but because it makes me feel like a victim, and I don’t ever want to feel like a victim again. But to all the women out there who have ever experienced anything like this, I know what it’s like. And I hope that if it ever happened again, I would have the fortitude to walk away.

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Rainbow Girl, a new Audio Drama set in the rock star world of 1979, available now!

October 19th, 2022

It’s 1979, the lead guitarist of The Wide Eyed Boys, Eddie Allbright, and his supergroupie model wife, Lissy Ellery are one of the most famous and glamorous rock couples in the world. From the outside, their life looks like a dream, but behind closed doors too many drugs, too many affairs and too much black magic is creating a recipe that will either save them, or destroy them.

An intimate look into the hedonistic life of a seventies rock band and their groupies, Rainbow Girl is for everyone who has ever wondered what it was really like to be with the band.

A stand alone, set in the world of Jane Green’s newest novel, Sister Stardust, Rainbow Girl mixes the glamor of The Rolling Stones with the partying of Studio 54, but can anything stop this marriage ending in a bloody, final mess.

Sponsored by Better Help, the show is available here: Rainbow Girl, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

For a sneak preview head to www.emeraldaudio.net and sign up for Hidden Gems Book Club.

More

Hitting the Road Again!

March 21st, 2022

Come and join me on tour! I’ll be (mostly) travelling with a mini souk – caftans, snake pendants and secret sauce bangles ahoy! Click on the relevant links for tickets and very much hope to see you on the road…

Click on the link for more information on how to buy tickets: Sister Stardust on Tour

More

Sister Stardust is available for pre-order NOW!

July 23rd, 2021

Fifty years ago, Talitha Getty was found dead in her husband’s apartment in Rome.

She had flown there for the weekend from her glorious London house on Cheyne Walk, some say to try and reconcile. At first, it was said to be an overdose of alcohol and barbiturates, but later it was revealed that it was a heroin overdose. There were strange circumstances around her death, the time it took to call a doctor, an ambulance. Heroin possession warranted an

immediate ten-year prison sentence in Italy at the time. Her husband, J. Paul Getty II (the father of the kidnapped boy who had his ear cut off), left Italy that day and never returned.
I have no idea why I have been obsessed with her my entire adult life. Up until a couple of years ago, the obsession was just her style, her beauty, an ethereal quality in her eyes in the famous Patrick Litchfield photographs I had seen (which I now know was because she was completely stoned). Her style was bohemian, eclectic, and utterly hers – she’d wear robes and jewelry from the souk near their palace in Marrakech, and team them with couture from her friend and neighbor, Yves Saint Laurent.

The Rolling Stones spent much time in Marrakech at the palace, particularly Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull.

I spent nine months researching my new novel, which is about a young woman who finds herself swept up in their impossibly glamorous, hedonistic world in Marrakech in the late sixties, not realizing the danger it will put her in.

Going in, I knew only that there was almost nothing known about her. I had to come at it sideways, working from the outside in, reading countless memoirs from people whose paths had crossed with the Gettys.
Sister Stardust comes out in April (and is available for pre-order now). There will be a cover reveal soon (I love the cover. LOVE), but on the anniversary of her death, may she rest in the peace she never found in life.
To Pre-order now:

More

It’s storytime…

March 20th, 2018

Jane Green is sharing the stories from her life. In this video, she’s considering going grey, but wondering how to keep it from her husband…

More

March Book Pick is here for the Jane Green Book Club

March 1st, 2018

Announcing our March book! Our next pick is Cruel Beautiful World by Caroline Leavitt . As with all of our choices, this was one of my ABSOLUTE favorites of last year.

It’s 1969, and sixteen-year-old Lucy is about to run away to live off the grid in rural Pennsylvania, a rash act that will have vicious repercussions for both her and her older sister, Charlotte. As Lucy’s default caretaker for most of their lives, Charlotte’s youth has been marked by the burden of responsibility, but never more so than when Lucy’s dream of a rural paradise turns into a nightmare.

Cruel Beautiful World examines the intricate, infinitesimal distance between seduction and love, loyalty and duty, and explores what happens when you’re responsible for things you cannot fix.

Caroline will be joining me live at my home – hooray – on March 15th at 8pm, where we will be chatting about the book, the writing life, and answering your questions.

She says about the book: When I was 17, a friend of mine was murdered by her much older, more controlling boyfriend–someone she had been with for five years. I never forgot it, but until I was in a controlling relationship of my own years later (Google my story “The Grief Diet,”) I couldn’t understand how someone could stay. I set the novel in 1969 and 1970, the time when the peace and love movement began to turn ugly, when Woodstock turned into Altamont and the Manson murders. The novel is so much about how we yearn to fix things and fix people, but sometimes we cannot, no matter how hard we try. Sometimes all you can do is step back and let life wash over you.

More

On Writing

February 19th, 2018

A little while ago, I had half a novel completed. I had thoroughly enjoyed the first half, but had reached a point where I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen next, and then life got in the way, and it started to feel more and more difficult to sit down and write.

 

I kept coming up with excuses. My life was so busy! There were columns for The Lady that needed to be written! The house was too cold to get out of bed! My hair was the wrong colour! Clearly, my excuses were no longer working, and I needed to make a change.

 

Years ago, before I started writing, I thought that my muse would strike on a daily basis. I imagined writing to be the most deeply romantic of professions, presuming I would leap out of bed from time to time, inspired, spending the rest of the night huddled in front of my computer, typing furiously as the words flowed through my fingertips.

 

There are, admittedly, some days like this, but after twenty three years of writing novels, they are few and far between. Also, it has never happened at night, probably because I like my bed far too much to leave it for anything other than a couple of barking dogs who some children have forgotten to lock inside for the night, and even then, I tend to lie there for at least ten minutes, praying that they will miraculously shut up all by themselves. I do keep a notebook next to my bed, just in case brilliance does strike, but usually, when I read it in the cold light of day, it is nonsensical. Truly. The kind of gobbledegook you can only write when you are actually still half-asleep.

 

What I have learned, after all these years, is that the only way a novel gets written, even when (perhaps especially when) you feel stuck, is to sit down and write it. And so, a few weeks ago I left my house every morning, drove to my office, left my phone (the distraction to end all distractions) in the car, and wrote.

 

I wrote even when I had no idea what I wanted to say. I wrote when I thought my characters had run out of steam. I wrote because writing is my job, and couldn’t procrastinate any longer, and I needed to feel the high of having written, rather than the constant guilt at putting it off.

 

And, as always, the magic happened. The characters woke up, as did I. Their lives got busy, and it became a pleasure, coming in to the office every day, looking forward to seeing what they would do next.

 

Towards the end, I started tearing up, which is when I know I have something good. When I get emotional at something my characters are going through, I know my readers will too, and last Friday, when I finally typed The End, I felt enormously proud of myself for finishing my twentieth novel, even when, at times, it felt like I didn’t know what to say.

 

Of course, the work is only beginning now. I am taking a week away from the manuscript so I can return with slightly fresher eyes, and then the edits will begin. I will read through and check the rhythm of the words, build up one of the characters, move a dramatic plot point to earlier in the book. 

 

But I am almost there, and the having written, even after twenty novels, is just as sweet today as it was all those years ago.

More

New Hobby Means New Gifts to Give

February 7th, 2018

I have started a pottery class. This seems to be de rigeur for women of a certain age. Every time I log on to Instagram or Facebook I see that yet another of my school friends has taken up pottery. My mother has taken up pottery. Seventy percent of the women I know have taken up pottery. For a very long time I fought the urge, but the pull became too strong, and now I have succumbed.

I am very well known for my obsessions, not least because they tend to make their way into my novels. Every time my characters suddenly become jewelers, or candle-makers, or chicken-keepers, you can bet your life it’s because their creator was doing the same thing at the time of writing the novel.

My obsessions do not last long, but they are all-consuming, and I usually produce an astonishing body of work during the brief time they last. When I completed a silversmith course at our local art school, I set up a jewelry studio in the basement of our house, complete with professional work table, soldering equipment, every tool and machine you can think of, used it for one month, then never went in there again.

My candle-making occurred in our kitchen. For around six weeks, it became a candle-making factory, with trays of candles cooling on every surface, and the delicious smell of fig and gardenia filling the air. A few local shops sold the candles, and then I got bored, and moved on to something else. Someone recently told me how upset they were that I stopped, because the scent had become her favorite smell for her house.

And now it is pottery. I have fallen in love with lace-embossed and stamped platters, and as much fun as it is to source them online or visit pottery shops, I would always much rather try my hand at making them myself. The last few weeks have been spent scouring eBay for interesting remnants of lace, and buying authentic Indian stamps that arrive from India wrapped in canvas, the edges sealed with a stocking stitch, then sealed every inch with a proper embossed wax seal. The packaging itself is so gorgeous, it pains me every time to have to unwrap them.

Past experience has taught me that my obsessions are finite, and they are never too long for this world, which means I have to get as much done as possible while I am still interested.

The first lesson was last week. Everyone in the class stood around making a pinch pot. I took the teacher aside and explained I was there to make something specific, and would she mind if I did my own thing. She didn’t mind at all, and so, by the end of the class, everyone else had made one pinch pot, and I had made three platters and a rather nice bowl. I whirled around the studio as if I had taken amphetamines, while my friend, The Scientist, stood there and laughed, for she knows me very well.

This week I continued with three plates, and a mug. I attempted throwing a pot on the wheel, but I decided it would take me too long to become halfway decent, plus it hurt my back.

If you are a friend of mine, there is a massive spoiler in this piece, because I am highly likely to end up with a hundred or so platters and bowls, and you will all be getting them as gifts for the next couple of years. They will be the perfect present to hold all that jewelry I’ve been giving you for the past three…

More

How Much Contour Does One Actually Need?

January 30th, 2018

Part of my adjusting to my new hair color has involved me changing my make-up, which I am realizing is far easier said than done.

I once knew a woman who continued wearing her brunette hair down to her waist, with heavy dark eyes and pale lips, into her seventies. It looked absolutely terrible, but no one had the heart to tell her how dated she looked.

I realize I have essentially been doing my make-up (and my hair) in exactly the same way for years. I will happily adjust my hair color, and I am worried that I am reaching the age where I am beginning to consider going short. Not short short, but shorter. Perhaps a style rather than boring old long hair.  I’m reaching an age where a fringe seems like an awfully good idea. Far less expensive than Botox, and surely just as effective?

My eyebrows were plucked into submission some years ago, and of course have never grown back in quite the same way. I now spend hours with an eyebrow pencil every day. Some days, they look magnificent. On others, I look like Liz Taylor on overdrive, and this is not a good look.

I regularly find myself poring over pictures of the Kardashians, wondering how their eyebrows look like that, and after I dyed my hair back to dark, when everyone told me I needed darker make-up, I found a make-up tutorial on YouTube which promised me that I would look like Kylie Jenner.

Oh reader, this was fun. I spent an hour contouring (the contouring! So much contouring!), blending, dabbing, brushing. I put brown eyeshadow under my cheekbones (one must make do with what one has), and pale above, then blended furiously so I didn’t look like I had been rolling around in a muddy field.

I lightly sketched in my eyebrows so they were perfectly arched, with actual sides (that was the weird bit with the over-plucking – the sides were the only bits that never grew back at all). I added gold sparkly stuff to my eyelids, and drew my lips on with lip liner in a way that made them look bigger and poutier than ever before.

No longer was Cher staring back at me in the mirror. Nor, it has to be said, was a Kardashian. It was me, only much, much more glamorous. My cheekbones were so pronounced I was worried I might cut myself on them. My lips were positively pillow-y, and my eyes were dark and smouldering (helped somewhat by the magnetic lashes that I have now decided are genius).

If only I had the time to do this every day! I almost didn’t wash it all off because I’m quite sure my cheekbones may never look like this again, but I took the obligatory selfie, so I can always remember that I too can look Kardashianesque, with a few spare hours and an awful lot of make-up.

In the meantime, I shall be going back to the make-up I’ve always had, and the hair I’ve always done, and I will pray that it all stays on trend for just a while longer.

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Jane Green

Jane Green is the head of Emerald Audio, a new podcast network creating original dramas for busy women from some of the best-loved writers in the country. She is also fthe author of twenty one novels, including eighteen New York Times bestsellers. She has over ten million books in print, is published in over 25 languages, and her new book, Sister Stardust, was her first foray into biographical fiction, telling the story of Talitha Getty in Marrakech in the late sixties.

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