My debut essay collection was published on the 17th June 2025 by Modern Odyssey Books.

A Line Drawn or Printed: Six Routes Through Madrid, by Jayne Marshall 

Life journeys us, whether we want it to or not. But it’s up to us what we do with those unexpected and sometimes startling pivots. 

The essays and stories in A Line Drawn or Printed trace the physical and emotional journeying of a woman who moves from the UK to Madrid in midlife, seeking reinvention, adventure and meaning. 

Against the backdrop of the sensuous Spanish capital and following the soft hum of commuter trains, the book maps the city through themes of love, the body, leave-taking, cities and choosing to be other. 

With poetic precision and disarming honesty, the essays explore how places and events etch themselves into our identity – and how meaning is often found not in an endpoint, but in the act of moving through. 

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Praise for A Line Drawn or Printed: 

As soon as I read A Line Drawn or Printed, I wanted to give the book to others – to those who feel they don’t belong, to those enduring heartbreak, to the survivors of others’ tragedies – because this remarkable book sees you, it understands you. It’s also very, very funny. ​

An excoriatingly, triumphantly, honest new voice. ​

-Anna Beer, author of Eve Bites Back and Death of an Englishman 

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Available online at the Modern Odyssey website, at Secret Kingdoms and Parenthesis bookshops in Madrid, Bookhaus in Bristol (UK) and all independent bookshops by pre-order.