About
Jennifer was born in the UK and wished her parents had left her in the cold and fog.
But with her Polish father suffering pneumonia three times in the year she was born, off to a ‘warm’ climate they went. She never goes near a beach.
At the age of fourteen, she wrote her first ‘novel’ – in the back of her Physics exercise book, perhaps diverting her from a promising career as an astrophysicist. Or maybe not. And even in that early effort, Jennifer’s lead character was strong and ambitious, a template for her later writing. She did however cut back on describing her heroine’s every outfit in detail.
The turning point in her young life was her father’s sudden death. That was her signal that life had to be lived fully and urgently, and she couldn’t waste a minute. When her mother took her and her sister to meet family in the UK and Europe, Jennifer knew exactly where she was heading after finishing her degree at Queensland University.
In between her travels, she worked in the fields of education and corporate management, but her long-held dream was to publish a novel. Just one would do, she figured.
Finally, while living in Sydney, she took the plunge, and while drawing on her knowledge of living in London, Rome and LA, she made Australia the prime setting. A brave decision when most successful commercial fiction at the time was published and set in the UK and US.
But Jennifer had timed things perfectly and when the manuscript was completed, she was lucky enough to meet Colleen McCullough, author of the huge international success, Thorn Birds. That resulted in an introduction to a bold new literary agent, one who believed Australia should publish its own stories featuring its own locations. And so, Jennifer became the first female author signed to Selwa Anthony’s newly established popular fiction agency.
With Selwa’s help, she got her manuscript into shape and was soon fielding offers from publishers both in Australia and overseas. When she landed a record-breaking publishing deal, it was a debut writer’s dream come true. The success of Shadows of Power/Indecent Ambition, did much to open the door for the many Australian writers that followed.
Jennifer has continued to write intricate, gripping suspense that always underlines women’s strength and capability, and keeps her fans riveted to the page.
Her surname is pronounced ‘Batcher’.