On The Edge is Jane Jesmond’s debut novel and the first in a series featuring dynamic, daredevil protagonist Jen Shaw. Although she was born in Newcastle Upon Tyne, raised in Liverpool and considers herself northern through and through, Jane’s family comes from Cornwall. Her lifelong love of the Cornish landscape and culture inspired the setting of On The Edge.
Jane has spent the last thirty years living and working in France. She began writing steadily six or seven years ago and writes every morning in between staring out at the sea and making cups of tea. She also enjoys reading, walking and amateur dramatics and, unlike her daredevil protagonist, is terrified of heights! Follow @AuthorJJesmond on Twitter, Visit jane-jesmond.com
About the book
Jen Shaw has climbed all her life: daring ascents of sheer rock faces, crumbling buildings, cranes – the riskier the better. Her entire life revolved around free climbing, and the adrenaline high it gave her. Until one day her luck ran out and someone she cared about got hurt. So she’s given it all up now. Honestly, she has.
Yet, when Jen awakens to find herself drugged and dangling off the local lighthouse during a wild storm less than twenty-four hours after a family emergency takes her home to Cornwall, she needs all her skill to battle her way to safety.
Then the real challenge begins. Jen must embark on a high-stakes, action-packed search for the truth in order to figure out whether she’s fallen back into her old risky ways, or if there is a more sinister explanation hidden in her hometown. Only when she has navigated her fragmented memories and faced her troubled past will she be able to piece together what happened – and trust herself to fix it.
Review
What gives this read an edge - no pun intended - is the fact the unreliable narrator is so unreliable she makes it easy for the bad guy, and that includes the fact Jen herself is possibly the bad guy. A sketchy drug-riddled past puts her in the curious position of not believing herself and no other person believing her either.
When an family member calls her home she finds her nightmares become the reality when she ends up dangling off a lighthouse in the middle of a storm. An attempt to end her life, but did she put herself in that dangerous position or was it someone else? Was the itch to dance with death, to feel the rush of adrenaline - her drug of choice above all others - is it the reason she finds herself bobbing off a lighthouse like helpless fish on a hook.
It's a web woven out of lies, denial, doubt, blame and guilt. A fast-paced thriller with plenty of potential as the series progresses. The author keeps readers on their toes by creating a framework of instability. She doubts, you doubt. The fog that Jen manifests, or rather the author manifests, is what drives the story, thrill and mystery.
Buy On The Edge at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Published by Verve Books, pub date 26th October 2021, Paperback Original, £9.99. Buy at Amazon com.
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