Jacquie Bloese, an alumna of the Curtis Brown Creative course, has a strong personal connection with the subject matter of THE FRENCH HOUSE. She grew up on Guernsey, and is in love with both the island setting and its history. The character of Emile is loosely inspired by her great-grandfather, who suffered permanent hearing loss as a young man. Jacquie has worked as a publisher of English Language Teaching materials for a variety of publishers including Penguin Random House, Scholastic and Oxford University Press. The French House, which was commended in the 2020 Caledonian Novel Award as 'a brilliantly moving historical novel' and was a finalist in the 2019 Mslexia First Novel Award, is her debut novel.