Madeleine Dunnigan Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Madeleine Dunnigan is an accomplished published author. She is both a writer and a screenwriter.

Madeleine hails from London and was a Jill Davis Fellow on the MFA at New York University. While she was there, Madeleine was awarded a Global Research Initiative Fellowship in Paris.

Readers have lots of time to get to know this author who first made their debut in 2026 with their book Jean. The book was published in the UK through Daunt Books and in the US through W.W. Norton. The author is also working on a debut feature film that is being commissioned by Film 4.

There is still a lot of room to grow for this author and if you loved her debut work then you are going to surely want to follow along with how Madeleine’s literary oeuvre progresses. Her debut is winning and is the perfect read to pick up for a beach day in the summer or a quiet reading session to yourself. It works for book clubs or on your own and if you’re looking to try something new, look no further!

Jean is a 2026 book by Madeleine Dunnigan. Check out this fresh new work from a new voice in the literary world. You may find yourself reading carefully but also that you are not willing to put it down until you get to the end in a story featuring the main character of Jean.

Jean is seventeen years old and is a troubled Jewish young man who finds himself somehow caught up in the counter-cultural mix of the city of London in the nineteen seventies. He finds his way to Compton Manor, a rural alternative boarding school for boys who have problems.

Even though all of the boys are outcasts, it seems from the moment that Jean gets there that he is one of the most outcast of all the outcasts. Despite this, he ends up making friends with one of his classmates named Tom. He is much more popular than Jean is (although that is not saying much as Jean is new and has nearly no friends at first), and he is also wealthier.

The blooming of their relationship and having a friend at school make Jean think that things are looking up, and for a brief moment it appears that his life and indeed his entire world might end up changing for the better. He thought that things would be tough here, but now he has made a friend and things might get even better from there.

When the dynamic between Tom and Jean takes a turn for the romantic, Jean is pitched head-first into a pool of chemicals and is infatuated in a way that completely goes to his head. What seems odd to him before and strange and exotic now is something that appears to be full of promise. This extends to things like compulsory farming done at school, having to read poetry aloud, going through pagan ritual. At this point, things are going well and Jean is excited to believe that he might be able to pass his exams with flying colors.

But while the pair are soaring high, there are also things about each of them that may have made them set up to fail. There are huge differences between Jean and Tom, differences that might end up making them more oil and water in the end. Tom has his tuition paid to attend the school, while Jean is there attending on scholarship. Tom is very social, and Jean is the type to sneak away and keep to himself.

In the end, these gaps between the core of how they exist in society may end up creating a distance that is just too far to cross. This story takes place over the course of a fictional hot summer that is sizzling in more ways than one. Will the two find something deeper, or was theirs a connection between two people that was destined never to last the test of time?

This is an exciting debut from Madeleine Dunnigan that readers will not want to miss out on. It’s a story that revolves around and is propelled forward by the types of love that are able to break and maybe even make whole. Read this book to find out what happens and to absorb every detail for yourself!