Jacqueline O'Mahony was named Young Irish Writer of the Year by the Irish Examiner when she was fourteen. She took her BA in Ireland, her MA at the University of Bologna, and her PhD in history at Boston College and as a Fulbright Scholar at Duke University. She worked at Condé Nast as a stylist and editor for Vogue and at Associated Newspapers as an arts editor, and in 2015 she graduated from City University's MA in creative writing with a first-class degree. Her debut novel, A River in the Trees, was nominated for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award and the Not the Booker Prize in 2020. Originally from Cork, Ireland, she lives in London with her husband and three young children.