CHARLOTTE MENDELSON was born in London in 1972 and grew up in Oxford. She has written and reviewed for the Guardian, the TLS, the Independent on Sunday, the Observer and elsewhere. She lives in London. Charlotte’s first short story, ‘Blood Sugar’, was published in New Writing 7 and twice broadcast on Radio 4. Her first novel, LOVE IN IDLENESS [2001], was largely written in her lunch breaks at work. For DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM [2003], her second novel, she was awarded the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the Somerset Maugham Award, and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Charlotte also received the London Arts New London Writers’ Award and a K. Blundell Trust Award, and was shortlisted for Le Prince Maurice Roman d’Amour Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Her third novel, WHEN WE WERE BAD, was published in May 2007, and was shortlisted for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction 2008. She was also chosen as one of Waterstone's 25 authors of the future. ALMOST ENGLISH, her fourth novel, was published in August 2013 and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.