J. V. Jones
Template:Short description Template:Infobox writer Julie Victoria Jones (born 1963) is an American/British<ref name=":2">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":3">Template:Cite book</ref> fantasy author.
Personal life
Julie Victoria Jones<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /> was born in Liverpool in 1963.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":1">Template:Cite web</ref> Jones was an avid reader from an early age and has cited numerous literary influences, including Charles Dickens,<ref name=":0" /> Mark Twain, Jane Austen, Jack London, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Ursula K. Le Guin.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In her youth, Jones worked as a barmaid in a pub in Liverpool.<ref name=":0" /> At age 20 she began to work for a local record label.<ref name=":1" /> She later moved to San Diego, California,<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> where she ran an export business for several years<ref name=":1" /> and then served as a computer consultant, software developer,<ref name=":3" /> and marketing director for an interactive software company.<ref name=":1" /> In her announcement of the completion of Endlords, she wrote that during the years it took to complete she worked "jobs that included dog sitting, selling women's clothes on eBay and freelancing writing".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Literary career
Jones's literary career began with the publication of the fantasy novel The Baker's Boy in 1995.<ref name=":0" /> The manuscript that was to become The Baker's Boy was initially submitted as Immortal Longings to Warner Books in 1993. In a joint essay, The Road to a First Novel, Jones and editor Betsy Mitchell described the editing process that followed the arrival of the manuscript in the publisher's slush pile.<ref>J. V. Jones and Betsy Mitchell, Template:ISFDB title</ref>
The Baker's Boy achieved bestseller status and was followed by two sequels, A Man Betrayed (1996) and Master and Fool (1997), both achieving similar levels of success and established Jones as "one of the biggest new names in fantasy".<ref name=":0" /> Following the completion of this trilogy, dubbed The Book of Words, Jones wrote a standalone fantasy novel, The Barbed Coil (1997).<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /> She has since written the Sword of Shadows series of fantasy novels,<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /> set in a different area of the same world as The Book of Words,<ref name=":0" /> though considerably grimmer in tone.<ref name=":2" />
In addition to writing fantasy novels, Jones has also written science fiction short stories on various subjects, including the internet and virtual reality, though she has never tried to get any of them published.<ref name=":0" />
Bibliography
The Book of Words trilogy
- The Baker's Boy (1995)
- A Man Betrayed (1996)
- Master and Fool (1997)
Sword of Shadows series
- A Cavern of Black Ice (1999)
- A Fortress of Grey Ice (2002)
- A Sword from Red Ice (2007)
- Watcher of the Dead (2010)
- Endlords (forthcoming)
- TBA (forthcoming)
Standalone novels
- The Barbed Coil (1997)