Her debut novel, The Earthquake Bird won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize a Betty Trask Award and the Crime Writers' Association John Creasy Dagger.
[1] Born in Hull, Jones spent her childhood in Hornsea in the East Riding of Yorkshire.
[2] Her father was a University Professor and her mother a teacher then School Inspector.
After graduating in 1988[4] she then travelled to Japan where she taught English in Nagoya on the JET Programme, spent two years in Turkey then returned to Japan in 1994 where she lived and worked in Chiba.
[4] She now lives near Brighton[3] and lectures in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway.