My wife, Josephine Gardiner, who has died aged 69 of lung cancer, was a journalist at the Times Educational Supplement and later a novelist. Her book, Whistling Jack (2022), was set in the rugged landscape of west Cornwall, where she lived in her final years.

The novel – described by the Cornishman newspaper as “a murder story, meditation on love and friendship, coming of age novel, social criticism and certainly eco fable” – was shortlisted in the best literary fiction category of Cornwall’s book awards, Gorsedh Kernow, in 2023, but unfortunately Jo was by then too ill to attend the awards ceremony.

She was born in Oxford, the elder of the two daughters of Patrick Gardiner, an academic philosopher, and his wife, Susan (nee Booth). Educated at Wychwood school and Oxford high school, she then went to Bedford College, University of London, where she obtained a first-class degree in history.

Afterwards she joined Out of Town magazine, which focused on the countryside and heritage, and by the mid-1980s was its assistant editor. She joined the Times Educational Supplement in 1986 and was a subeditor/reporter there until 1998, when she decided on a change in direction, leaving to study psychology at the Open University, followed by an MSc in the same subject at Durham University.

In the end she did not work in psychology, as not long afterwards we moved to Barcelona, where, in her 50s, she progressed from knowing barely a word of Spanish to working as a translator for local companies and as a freelance English teacher.

When Jo was approaching 60 we returned to the UK to live in Penzance, where she freelanced as an assistant editor at the New Art Examiner magazine and did stints working in the bakery at Tesco’s and as a cleaner in a hotel while she toiled on her novel.

Her illness struck just before Whistling Jack was published, but later some partially successful treatment allowed her to indulge in her great love of train travel between 2023 and 2025, revisiting old haunts in the UK and abroad, as well as finding new ones. We made 20 trips in 30 months as she packed in as much as she could before things took a turn for the worse last summer. Even then she continued to have an optimistic outlook, taking on a new allotment, renewing her railcard for three years and planning journeys for this year.

We met in 1992 and married the following year. Jo is survived by me, her sister, Vanessa, and her niece, Jessie.