'I've been a nanny, made Christmas puddings, and campaigned against sexism with No More Page Three - but writing is always what I wanted to do'

Author Jo Cheetham began writing her first novel “at the worst time in my life”. “Both of my parents died within a year of each other which was really unexpected, then there was Covid, then my long term relationship broke down and I suddenly found myself at the age of 40 absolutely broke, grieving, with nowhere to live and single for the first time in 15 years.”

The result is Love and Rent, a book that follows a woman in her 30s who is struggling to make ends meet and desperately trying to live an independent life in an economy that makes it increasingly difficult to do so.

“It explores all different kinds of love - familial, friendship, romantic,” explains Jo, who lives in Rotherham. “But it’s also about the idea of home and what that means, particularly now when so many people in their 30s and 40s are living in house shares or with family in spare rooms and how that uncertainty affects every part of your life really - dating, friendships and a sense of who you are.”

Jo says she wanted to recognise a housing reality for many that is not often portrayed in fiction or on television. “I wrote it really for anybody who feels like their life hasn’t followed the expected path….To try and normalise it because depressingly it is actually quite a normal situation to be in right now in this economy.”

It’s not the first time Jo has had a book published. The 45-year-old’s debut work was a memoir – Killjoy, which told the story of her experience campaigning against sexism in the tabloid press. She was studying the history of art in London when she joined the No More Page Three movement.

That period is one of a long list of experiences that Jo has to her name. Her varied working career has seen her experience academia, nannying, and work as a travel agent and food historian. She even did a stint as a Christmas pudding maker after the family of a child she was minding tried her recipe and then wanted to buy her version of the dessert. “Then locally I suddenly got all of these customers,” Jo recalls. “I made hundreds and hundreds of Christmas puddings. I’d spend all summer boiling hot, smelling of cinnamon.”

For the last few years, however, writing has firmly been a full-time focus and already Jo is on with the next book. “This is always what I wanted to do since I was a kid,” Jo says.

“I kept journals since I was six or seven, since I knew how to write my name I’ve been writing stuff down. When I was a teenager, I’d borrow a tenner from my dad and he’d say ‘you can give it me back when you get your book deal’…

"My mum used to write. She didn’t publish anything but she kept really funny diaries and journals. She wrote everything down...Sometimes she’d make them into short stories. I grew up being encouraged to write – and to notice things. So it’s always been the thing I wanted to do.”

• Love and Rent by Jo Cheetham, published by Phoenix, is out now.