Noël Coward: dramatist, composer, actor, director, lyricist, and at one time the highest-earning author in the western world. He virtually invented the concept of the sophisticated Englishman for the 20th Century. Queen Elizabeth knighted him in 1969, and since his death in 1973, there has not been a time when his plays are not staged (Private Lives), films shown (Brief Encounter) and songs sung (Mad Dogs and Englishmen). An astounding talent, not even his very public homosexuality and his flamboyant lifestyle could diminish his popularity and acclaim. Firefly is Coward’s beloved retreat on a secluded hillside in Jamaica. There, between brandies and cigarettes, the entertainer wiles away his days - a dispiriting pattern of unwanted meals, reluctant walks, graceless swims in the pool – in the company of his man servant, Patrice, and reluctant former lover, Graham Payn. They talk of a London long gone or imagined: Noel’s is peopled with glamorous friends – Redgrave, Taylor, Olivier, O’Toole – Patrice’s a naive vision of elegance and opportunity. Set over a few weeks in the early seventies, Firefly sorts through Coward’s dreams and memories, his successes and regrets against a sultry Caribbean backdrop of blue mountains and endless vistas. By turns revealing, wicked, witty, and unsparing, this sparkling novel is a moving portrait of age and friendship, and a poignant recollection of a life fully lived.

Janette Jenkins
Janette Jenkins is the author of the novels Columbus Day, Another Elvis Love Child, Angel of Brooklyn and Little Bones. Her short stories have appeared in newspapers and anthologies, and have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. In 2003 she was awarded an Alumni Fellowship by the University of Bolton. She lives in Durham, England.

• Jan 24 2014
  The New York Times Sunday Book Review: "Jenkins darts about Coward’s history with an impressionistic briskness that offers a welcome respite from the flattening minutiae of doorstopper biographies."
  
• Jan 8 2014
  Ralphmag: "Ms. Jenkins has evidently entered into the life of Coward with such agility, wit, and historical background that her writing becomes him, in all senses of the word."
  
• Dec 27 2013
  Counterpunch: "[a] delightful romp."
  
• Dec 22 2013
  Towelroad: "Jenkins has made a vivid, caustic, funny, deeply sympathetic portrait of an artist who is finally as limited as he is brilliant."
  
• Dec 16 2013
  Reader's Digest: Chosen as one of the 6 Great Books of 2013 (That You Might Have Missed)
  
• Dec 12 2013
  Reader's Digest: Names Firefly one of 2013's 6 Great Books to Read (That You Might Have Missed)