Rebecca began her working life as right-hand woman to her father, David Jenkins, Bishop of Durham 1984-94. For ten years she was in charge of media relations for the Durham Diocese, through the Miners’ Strike and the turbulent Thatcher Years. She was David Jenkins’s writing partner and researcher on a range of book, newspaper, television and radio projects including Free To Believe (BBC Enterprises) a book tied in to an Everyman film for Easter 1991, Resonances a documentary series for Channel 4 and a short play performed at the Royal Court Theatre as part of Max Stafford Clarke’s May Days series in 1991.
After David Jenkins’s retirement she continued to work with him on two more books on economics and theology/philosophy – MARKET WHYS AND HUMAN WHEREFORES (Cassell 2000) and his autobiography, THE CALLING OF A CUCKOO (Continuum 2002/3).
A fan of Georgette Heyer’s Regency romances and the Baroness D’Orzy’s Scarlet Pimpernel tales, Rebecca began collecting diaries and journals from the Georgian period as a child. Her first job, aged 14, was as an usherette and then dresser at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester – an experience that ignited her interest in theatre and celebrity
Her biography of the nineteenth century actress FANNY KEMBLE, THE RELUCTANT CELEBRITY (Simon & Schuster 2005/6), was short-listed for the 2005 Theatre Book Prize.
We were delighted to welcome Rebecca to our list with a non-fiction proposal for the history of the 1908 LONDON OLYMPICS. Piatkus under the Little, Brown aegis, published in Summer 2008 and the book was long-listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. It was reissued as a paperback to coincide with the London Olympics. Film/TV via RCL.
A history graduate from Somerville College, Oxford, her first novel, introducing her Regency detective Raif Jarrett, THE DUKE’S AGENT, has been by Sapere Books, along with its sequel, DEATH OF A RADICAL.
Rebecca is now working on the third Raif Jarrett novel.