Hopkins, Justine

Daughter of Z CARS creator John Hopkins and grand-daughter of novelist Nigel Balchin, Justine Hopkins graduated from Bristol University with First Class Honours in English and Drama, she went on to take an MA at the Courtauld Institute of Art History, where she specialized in the Romantic period, and wrote her dissertation on the early career of her step-grandfather, the painter, sculptor, critic and novelist, Michael Ayrton.

She has worked for various Universities, including Bristol, Cambridge, Oxford and London; at both Tates, the V&A, National and National Portrait Galleries, Covent Garden, Christies, and numerous independent art groups. She has now written the first of a three-book historical sequence, HEARTWOOD. This novel is set in seventh-century Ireland, and deals with events surrounding the struggle for High-Kingship and the creation of the mystical Unicorn Harp of Tara. Future volumes are set in the Viking Age, around the first millennium, and Norman England. The on-going fate of the Harp binds them all together.

Justine’s next project is a novel of the life of St Paul.

Delivery date: Trilogy: Available now