Nicci French

For the dancer/singer, see Nicki French.

Nicci French is the pseudonym of English husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who write psychological thrillers together.

Personal life

Nicci and Sean were married in 1990 and since 1999 have lived in Suffolk in East Anglia, England. Nicci has two children, Edgar and Anna, from her first marriage, and the couple have two daughters of their own, Hadley and Molly.

Nicci Gerrard

Nicci Gerrard was born on 10 June, 1958. She grew up in Worcestershire, together with her two sisters and her brother.

She was educated at The Alice Ottley School in Worcester. She then studied English literature at Oxford University and went on to teach literature in Los Angeles and London. She founded a women's magazine before becoming a freelance journalist. During that time she married and had two children.

Following the failure of this first marriage, she met Sean French whilst working as editor for the New Statesman where French wrote a weekly column, but left when she was offered another job at The Observer.

Sean French

Sean French was born on 28 May , 1959 in Bristol. He was, like his two younger brothers Patrick and Karl, educated at William Ellis secondary school in north London before studying English literature at Oxford University. Sean and Nicci never met while there. While at Oxford University, French won a young writers contest organised by Vogue, and subsequently became a journalist.

In 1987 he got his first column and until the end of 2000 he wrote columns for the New Statesman. His sole-authored novel Start from Here was published in 2004.

Style

The writers use self-imposed constraints: the main character is always a strong and vulnerable woman, independent and stubborn. They don't use real facts, only personal anecdotes, encounters or journeys. They write in alternation, and then rewrite each other's texts.

Works

• The Memory Game (1997)
• The Safe House (1998)
• Killing Me Softly (1999)
• Beneath the Skin (2000)
• The Red Room (2001)
• The People Who Went Away (2001), a short story published as a novella for promotional purposes^[1]
• Land of the Living (2003)
• Secret Smile (2003)
• Catch Me When I Fall (2005)
• Losing You (2006)
• Until It's Over (2007)
• Speaking Ill of the Dead (2008), a short story published for promotional purposes^[2]
• What To Do When Someone Dies (2008)
• Complicit (2009), published in the United States as The Other Side of the Door (2010)
• Blue Monday (2011)

Footnotes

1. ^ "International Fiction Bestsellers". Publishing Trends. SEPTEMBER 2003. Archived from the original on 2008-02-11. http://web.archive.org/web/20080211095140/http://www.publishingtrends.com/copy/03/0309/0309intl.html. Retrieved 2008-01-16. 
2. ^ [1]

External links

• Official Nicci French website from Penguin Books
• Nicci French website including blog

Persondata
Name	French, Nicci
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