Commissioning editor Tom Rawlinson scooped debut YA thriller Their Vicious Games by Joelle Wellington from Jenny Meyer of The Jenny Meyer Literary Agency for publication in July 2023. “This engrossing read about The Finish – a brutal and elite game where the rules can be changed at any minute – will make you think as it thrills,” the publisher said. Now 36, Jenny was born in Belfast to Paul Flynn, a GP, and Rosie Flynn, a piano teacher, and she has an older brother Adam. She studied law and French at the University of Liverpool. “I had no idea what I wanted to do,” she laughs. “I got to live in Paris for my Erasmus year, which was brilliant.”

Little do they know they've already discovered each other online, and have more in common than they think . . . It surprised me just how many people are involved in the publication of a book. Editors, copy editors, proof readers, a designer for the cover as well as an illustrator and I’m sure a million more people I didn’t even know were involved. It’s a proper team sport. I love that. What advice would you give people who would like to write a YA novel? Juliet thinks Ronan thinks someone like Ronan could never be interested in someone like her - and she wouldn't want him to be anyway - he always acts like he's cooler than everyone else.In a “whatever-doesn’t-kill-you way”, Ireland credits her encephalitis with giving her the confidence to write about chronic illness. “[Since my surgery,] I don’t freak out about the tiny things any more. I’m more inclined to go for it and write about what I want.”

The First Move is a book that reminded me of the power of love and the hope for the future YA embodies so well. I want to say again that the people feel real, the emotions feel real, the situations, regrets, second-guessing--everything. And the pull between Renia and Miles is so sweet. The romance is wonderful and the sex scenes are really good. There is so much in this book but it all works so well together. It's a book about finding a healthy place in relationships- between mother and daughter, father and daughter, mother and the daughter she gave up for adoption, between a man and a woman falling in love. There is hope, fear, rejection, forgiveness and finally acceptance. Acceptance that you do the best you can, so forgive yourself and others and move on with your life. Juliet believes girls like her - girls with arthritis - don't get their own love stories. She exists at the edges of her friends' social lives, skipping parties to play online chess under a pseudonym with strangers around the world. There, she isn't just 'the girl with crutches'.

With a thrilling will-they-won’t-they rollercoaster ride of a plot revealing their respective struggles through a compelling dual narrative, The First Move is that story that’ll move readers while putting great big grins on their faces.

In 2020, she was chosen for the scheme, and began having regular calls with an editor who coached her through finishing the novel. Then, in the autumn of 2021, Ireland was offered a two-book deal with Penguin Random House. “My kids still remember it as the day I said the ‘F-word’ three times in a row. Of course, it was truly warranted. It changed my life completely.”

Jenny began writing in the sleep-deprived days after Rory was born, and got more serious about it in 2017 when she did a writing course with the literary agency, Curtis Brown. There was a lot to like here. Renia is a really interesting character, and at a really interesting time in her life. I really appreciated how sensitively the issue of her having given her daughter in adoption was handled. This is not yet another book saying that giving a baby up, even when it’s patently the right thing to do, will screw you up for life. It’s true that Rey IS pretty screwed up about what happened, but I’d argue that it’s clear that this is more about her mother’s abandonment of her teenage self than about her own abandonment of her baby.