Jojo Moyes

Worked as a journalist for a decade before fiction, and Me Before You is the one that broke through: a young woman is hired to care for a man left quadriplegic by a road accident, who has already decided he does not want to continue.

The book was criticised by disability rights campaigners for where it ends up, and that argument is worth having rather than waving away. Moyes has written a good deal besides, including The Giver of Stars, about the packhorse librarians of Depression-era Kentucky.