ilona Bannister

author

Hi and welcome!

I’m the author of three novels, When I Ran Away, Little Prisons and coming soon, in May 2026, Five, published by Crown in the US and Juniper, a new imprint of Harper Collins UK.

Before I started writing, I left my job as an immigration lawyer and stayed home with my kids for a few years. When I tried to go back to work, I couldn’t get hired. So with half a heart, a whole lot of anxiety, and approaching forty, I took a writing class.

One thing led to another and now I sit in cafes all day looking thoughtfully into the distance with my books fanned before me.

That’s not true. I only do that on Thursdays at 11am.

Mostly I write and take care of my family. I talk to myself while I do laundry and listen to podcasts and make up stories about people I come across in the supermarket, and at the post office, and on buses and trains. I pay attention to details and conversations between strangers. I’d be a really good private detective.

My books are about light in the dark and the gorgeous in the ordinary. I write about people pushed to the margins and the courage it takes to survive every day. I write about love and loss and change and hope. I write about the small moments and the big ones.

I hope my new book, Five, will keep you guessing and get you hooked on five characters I spent a lot of time with in my mind: the child, the mother, the businessman, the old woman and the gambler. I hope you love them as much as I do. Like my other books, it may make you cry, but I hope it will make you laugh too, and also wonder at the wonderfulness of people.

I can’t forget to say that although I live in the UK, I’m a New Yorker, born and raised. All New Yorkers have to tell you that as soon as you meet us.

Thanks for reading this, and if you see me at a cafe on Thursday, I will buy you a coffee if you casually ask me about the books on the table ;)