Talitha Stevenson

Talitha Stevenson was born in 1975, attended three schools before the age of ten, then spent a year as a groom in a racing stable before attending an unconventional, 'alternative education' school in London.  She read English Literature at Christ Church Oxford, but left after a year in order to write and to live in an artists’ commune in Florence. To fund her writing, she’s been a portrait model, a photographic model, a horse-trainer, an English teacher and a nanny for children with special needs. Her journalism has appeared in the Daily Mail and The Guardian.

An Empty Room by Talitha Stevenson
Virago

Following the seemingly endless summer Emily experiences just before going up to university - staying up all night, sleeping all day, drinking, drugs, clubs and sex – Emily and her friends feel total freedom which promises so much yet delivers an overwhelming sense of self-betrayal.  In her search to believe in something or someone, Emily finds herself drawn to her boyfriend’s complex older cousin – but Simon is married and their ensuing affair forces her to construct her own sense of right and wrong at the very moment she sees the moral emptiness surrounding her.