Marcia Hutchinson Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Marcia Hutchinson is a published British novelist, politician, former lawyer, and fitness instructor.

She was born on December 11, 1962 in the United Kingdom. Her parents belonged to the Windrush Generation of post war migrants to the UK. Her parents had nine children and she was the seventh. Her younger sister Yvonne was a housing campaigner in Bradford. Her four older siblings were in Jamaica and when her parents were residing in Bradford in the sixties they had five more children.

Marcia grew up in Bradford, which was known for being a poorer area of the city. They would later move to the council estate Newby Square, which was demolished later in 1987. She went to the Belle Vue Girl’s Comprehensive School in Bradford. She would be the first student from the school to get into Oxford University and went to Brasenose College from 1982 to 1985.

She attended the College of Law in Lancaster Gate and after that qualified as a solicitor in 1986. She would then go on to work for different firms, specializing in town and country planning. The author would go on to have two daughters and after they were born Marcia switched careers. She founded Primary Colours, a Huddersfield multicultural educational publishing and training company.

Primary Colours would go on from 1997-2014, publishing books and teaching packs while delivering Theatre in Education, INSET training on diversity and cultural diversity projects in schools as well as different educational places located around the country. She was awarded an MBE in the Queens Birthday Honours list in 2010 for her services to cultural diversity.

Marcia joined the Labour Party in 2016, setting up the Pipeline Project in a response to Black Councillors being under-represented in Manchester. Three of its alumni were elected as Labour Councillors in 2021, including the author. Marcia resigned in December of 2021, citing a ‘toxic culture’. She discussed attitudes to immigration and racism in an appearance on Dining across the Divide in The Guardian in May of 2022.

Her first novel is The Mercy Step, which was published by Cassava Republic in 2025. The novel was largely inspired and pulls from the author’s only early days living in Bradford.

The Mercy Step is a 2025 novel by Marcia Hutchinson. This novel made the shortlist for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction and The Observer named Hutchinson one of the best new novelists for 2025.

The setting is Bradford and the date is December 1962. Mercy makes her way into the world when she is pulled from the familiar warm spot of her mother’s womb and enters into a household full of chaos that appears to not have a place for her. There’s a lot going on right off the bat. Her siblings don’t appear to understand her, the attention that her mother does have is devoted to the church, and then all of the family has to deal with the temper of her father.

Left all on her own, Mercy is able to find some refuge in books as well as going into her imagination. She is also able to find comfort in her favorite toy Dolly, who never lets her down. But there are limits even when it comes to escapism.

As things threaten to come into her world, Mercy is starting to realize that she is going to have to do something if she wants her future to be different, one where she is seen and heard and her family is finally liberated. This is an eloquent picture by Marcia Hutchinson of a young girl and her strength as she channels her utter refusal to become someone who is broken. Read this book to follow along with every detail and add an intriguing new work to your bookshelf with The Mercy Step!