Jo Bavington-Jones was born in 1967 in Dover where her father owned the local newspaper. Her great great grandfather, John Bavington Jones, wrote books about the town, so writing is in Jo’s genes. Jo attended Dover Girls’ Grammar School and has an honours degree in English and American Literature from the University of Kent at Canterbury. She has always wanted to be a writer and to make people laugh. While pursuing that aim Jo has also worked as a customs officer, quality assurance officer and membership and events manager for a Texan fitness celebrity. Having experienced the highs and lows of marriage, motherhood and divorce, Jo has a wealth of life experience which she brings to her writing with realism and humour.
The push Jo needed to start writing came when she was made redundant: it was a now or never moment. Jo quickly realised that what she wanted was to develop a female character who real women could truly identify with. Jo says: ‘I wanted my readers to feel that I’d peeked into their lives and was writing about them. And, more than anything in those early days, I wanted to make my readers smile, and maybe even laugh out loud as Lucy muddled her way through life.’
Jo was signed by James Essinger at Canterbury Literary Agency and her first novel, Lucy Shaw’s Not Sure, was published in October 2017, with the sequel, Lucy Shaw Wants More, following in May 2019, both books being published by The Conrad Press.
Jo now lives in Folkestone with her photographer partner, Dirk Seyfried, and was inspired by her local writing group and the Triennial art exhibits to pen her first crime novel. The Write Way to Die (July 2021) is a blackly comic, sometimes grisly, tale of murder in the creative quarter of the seaside town, where the bodies are mounting up amongst the art installations. Set during the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic, The Write Way to Die also documents Jo’s experience of this strange period in all our lives. The second book in The Write Way to Die series, Bang to Rights (June 2024), sees the return of best friends and amateur sleuths, Amy and Jenny, as they investigate another spate of murders around the art installations of the seaside town. Book three in the series, The Wipeout Round, is set in the world of pub quizzing, and has Jo’s usual dark humour, and more puns than you could ever want! Jo is currently writing the fourth in the series.
Jo’s fourth novel, A Giraffe Thing, which was published in August 2021, is a compelling tale of a dysfunctional family, of love and loss and a secret that threatens to wreck lives. It will test your moral compass as you ride the emotional rollercoaster of Lou’s life.
Jo’s latest novel, The Bonfire Buddleia (March 2025), is a sometimes dark, and often emotional story of three sisters, historic abuse and a missing girl.