Tonya Mitchell
Ever since reading Jane Eyre in high school, Tonya has been drawn to dark stories, particularly of the gothic variety. Her influences include Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, and Bram Stoker. More contemporarily, she loves the work of Shirley Jackson, Agatha Christie, Victoria Holt, Margaret Atwood, and Laura Purcell.
When she landed on a story about a woman who pretended to be insane in order to write a newspaper story, she knew she’d landed on something she was meant to write.
Tonya received her BA in journalism from Indiana University. Her short fiction has appeared in The Copperfield Review, Words Undone, and The Front Porch Review, as well as in various anthologies, including Furtive Dalliance, Welcome to Elsewhere, and Glimmer and Other S
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Naomi Clifford
13 Park Lane is Naomi’s debut historical crime novel and is based on a real-life case from 1872 in which Marguerite Diblanc, a young Belgian cook, murdered her mistress, a mysterious French widow.
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Naomi Clifford grew up in London. After reading history at Bristol University, she spent two years in Nashville, Tennessee, and following her return worked for a variety of magazines and websites.
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Heather Frimmer
Heather Frimmer is a radiologist specializing in breast and emergency room imaging. Her first novel, Bedside Manners, was published in 2018 and has received several awards including National Indie Excellence, Readers' Favorite and Independent Press awards. She completed her medical training at Weill-Cornell Medical College, New York Presbyterian-Cornell and Yale New Haven Hospital. She lives with her husband and two children in suburban Connecticut.
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Kirsten Mickelwait
Kirsten Mickelwait has been passionate about reading and writing for as long as she can remember, but her love of literature was really ignited as an English major at UC Berkeley, where she discovered James Joyce and the expatriate writers of 1920s Paris. Her historical novel, The Ashtrays Are Full and the Glasses Are Empty, features many of these characters, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Gertrude Stein, and Dorothy Parker. Her memoir, The Ghost Marriage, was published in 2021. Kirsten is an alumna of the Community of Writers, the Napa Valley Writers Conference, the Kauai Writers' Conference, and several other writers' workshops. She has another book in the pipeline—a speculative novel—and is currently at
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Kim Taylor Blakemore
Kim writes historical novels that feature fierce, audacious, and often dangerous women. She writes about the thieves and servants, murderesses and mediums, grifters and frauds - the women with darker stories, tangled lies and hidden motives.
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She is the author of the historical thrillers THE DECEPTION, Silver Falchion Award winner AFTER ALICE FELL, THE COMPANION, and the historical novels BOWERY GIRL, and CISSY FUNK, a WILLA Award winner for Best Young Adult novel. She also writes historical fiction featuring wild-willed women of the West under the pen name K.T. Blakemore.
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Ellen Won Steil
Ellen Won Steil is the bestselling author of Fortune and the forthcoming Becoming Marlow Fin. She grew up in Iowa in a Korean-American family and earned her BA in journalism from Drake University and law degree from William Mitchell College of Law. She lives in Minnesota with her husband and two young sons. Ellen believes most good stories have at least a hint of darkness.
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Carolyn Jess-Cooke
C.J. (Carolyn) Cooke is an acclaimed, award-winning poet, novelist and academic with numerous publications as Carolyn Jess-Cooke and Caro Carver. Her work has been published in twenty-three languages to date. Born in Belfast, C.J. has a PhD in Literature from Queen’s University, Belfast, and is currently Reader in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow, where she also researches the impact of motherhood on women’s writing and creative writing interventions for mental health. Her books have been reviewed in The New York Times, The Guardian, Good Housekeeping, and the Daily Mail. She has been nominated for an Edgar Award and an ITW Thriller Award, selected as Waterstones’ Paperback Book of the Year and a BBC 2 Pick, and has had two Boo
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Smita Bhattacharya
SMITA BHATTACHARYA writes atmospheric cosy, and psychological mystery fiction. Strong female protagonists and twisty whodunnits are her forte. Her psychological thriller novel—Dead to Them—was amongst the top Crime, Thriller & Mystery books of Amazon India in 2022. It has been optioned for a movie. She has also authored a popular amateur detective series—the Darya Nandkarni Misadventure Series. The first of the series—Kiss of Salt—is in talks to be optioned for a movie.
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Smita lives in Mumbai but has solo travelled to over 45 countries. Her stories are heavily inspired by her travels and by those she meets. She has worked in a vineyard, a newsroom, a school, a library, a bank, an advisory firm, and a technology start-up.
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Tess Burnett
Tess is a late bloomer. She has always loved writing, but only started writing seriously in her late 50s.
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The Hanging of Hettie Gale was written whilst Tess lived in Ireland. She self published, then entered the Dorchester Literary Festival local writers' competition which she won. Now available in a shiny new version through Bloodhound Books.
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J.M. Varese
Jon Michael Varese (J.M. Varese) is an American novelist and literary historian whose first novel, The Spirit Photographer (2018), was published to critical acclaim. Varese has also written widely on Victorian literature and culture, and has served in various capacities, most recently as Director of Outreach, for The Dickens Project at the University of California for over two decades.
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Helen Scarlett
Helen Scarlett is a writer and English teacher based in the north east of England. Her debut historical novel, 'The Deception of Harriet Fleet', is inspired by the nineteenth century classics she grew up loving. The main character is a vulnerable govereness, who arrives at an isolated house, which is tainted by murder and dark secrets. It is set in County Durham, close to where Helen lives with her husband and two daughters.
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Kristin Owens
Kristin grew up in Buffalo, New York and moved immediately after the Bill’s fourth Super Bowl loss for better odds. She now resides in sticky southwest Florida and watches her hair expand by the minute.
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She earned a PhD in Higher Education Administration and held academic positions at Penn State, University of Maryland, University of Alaska Anchorage, and Mat-Su College. She also taught a variety of subjects (from ballroom dancing to graduate statistics) and was chosen Teacher of the Year by Aims Community College students.
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Danielle M. Wong
Danielle M. Wong is a travel-obsessed author of psychological thrillers. She pens the type of stories that keep her up at night, featuring gripping scenes, complex characters, and twist-filled plots. She has been published to critical acclaim, earning Independent Press, Reader’s Favorite, and International Book Awards, among others. Danielle’s writing has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, HuffPost, PopSugar, and Writer’s Digest. She is currently working on her next novel.
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Cat Thomas
Cat Thomas writes Gothic tales, spooky sci-fi and other twisted fiction. Her debut novel, SYNTHETIC, was published in 2019 and her second novel, THE HAUNTING OF ABNEY HEIGHTS, was released in October 2022.
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She's also combined the areas of technology, literature and culture when teaching and running projects in universities. Her research has explored the unsettling idea of the fragmented online self.
Cat’s writing is sometimes unsettling, sometimes funny but always lively.
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Susan Wiggs
Susan Wiggs's life is all about family, friends...and fiction. She lives at the water's edge on an island in Puget Sound, and she commutes to her writers' group in a 17-foot motorboat. She serves as author liaison for Field's End, a literary community on Bainbridge Island, Washington, bringing inspiration and instruction from the world's top authors to her seaside community. (See www.fieldsend.org) She's been featured in the national media, including NPR's "Talk of the Nation," and is a popular speaker locally and nationally.
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According to Publishers Weekly, Wiggs writes with "refreshingly honest emotion," and the Salem Statesman Journal adds that she is "one of our best observers of stories of the heart [who] knows how to capture emotion on -
Jennifer Jabaley
Jennifer Jabaley is the author of two Young Adult novels published with Razorbill/Penguin Young Readers. She is currently working on a Domestic Suspense novel.
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When not writing, Jennifer practices optometry with her husband in the North Georgia mountains. She has two very active kids and two very spoiled dogs.
Jen is an avid reader, tennis player, and Pilates junkie. She loves coffee, a great sporting event, and spending time with her friends. -
Daniel Kraus
“Kraus brings the rigor of a scientist and the sensibility of a poet.” – The New York Times
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DANIEL KRAUS is a New York Times bestselling writer of novels, TV, and film. WHALEFALL received a front-cover rave in the New York Times Book Review, won the Alex Award, was an L.A. Times Book Prize Finalist, and was a Best Book of 2023 from NPR, the New York Times, Amazon, Chicago Tribune, and more.
With Guillermo del Toro, he co-authored THE SHAPE OF WATER, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar-winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus co-authored TROLLHUNTERS, which was adapted into the Emmy-winning Netflix series. His also cowrote THE LIVING DEAD and PAY THE PIPER with legendary filmmaker George A. Romero.
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Claudia H. Long
Claudia H. Long has written in a wide range of genres. She first wrote historical fiction, beginning with Josefina's Sin. Following Josefina's Sin, Claudia wrote The Duel for Consuelo, featuring the Secret Jews of Mexico, and Chains of Silver, set in the silver mining city of Zacatecas in 1753.
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Turning her attention to family history, her next book, Nine Tenths of the Law, was published by Kasva Press. Based on her mother's survival in World War 2, and featuring a contemporary mystery starring two daughters as they searched for an artifact stolen during that war, this book broke new ground for Claudia. The second book in the Zara and Lilly series, Our Lying Kin, came out from Kasva in 2023.
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Christine Nolfi
Christine Nolfi is the award-winning and bestselling author of seventeen novels. Look for her 2025 release, The Secret Library of Hanna Reeves.
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Other works include her 2024 release A Heart Like Home; A Brighter Flame, selected by She Reads as a best book club pick and The Passing Storm, cited by Publishers Weekly as “Tautly plotted, expertly characterized, and genuinely riveting” and gold medal winner in general fiction, International Book Awards.
Earlier works include The Road She Left Behind, a top book club pick by Working Mother and Parade magazines; the award-winning Sweet Lake Series: Sweet Lake, The Comfort of Secrets, and The Season of Silver Linings; Second Chance Grill, highly recommended by The Midwest Book Review and Treasure Me, -
Valerie Bowman
Valerie Bowman is an award-winning author who writes historical and contemporary romance.
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Valerie’s debut novel was published in 2012. Since then, her books have received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus. She’s been an RT Reviewers’ Choice nominee for Best First Historical Romance and Best Historical Romance Love and Laughter. Two of her books have been nominated for the Kirkus Prize for fiction.
Valerie grew up in Illinois with six sisters (she’s number seven) and a huge supply of romance novels. After a cold and snowy stint earning a degree in English Language and Literature with a minor in history at Smith College, she moved to Florida the first chance she got. Valerie now lives in Jacksonville with her family -
Joe Hart
Joe Hart is the Edgar Award-winning and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of seventeen novels including The River Is Dark, Obscura, The Last Girl, and Or Else. His work has been optioned for film and translated into eight languages. He lives with his family in Minnesota.
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Nicci Cloke
Nicci Cloke is the author of eight novels, including two under the pseudonym Phoebe Locke. Her books have been published in twelve languages.
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She previously worked as a nanny, a cocktail waitress and a Christmas Elf to support her writing. Before being published, she worked as a permissions manager, looking after literary estates including those of Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes and T. S. Eliot, and was also communications manager at the Faber Academy. -
Gillian Jackson
Author of Abduction, Snatched, The Accident, and four more books published by Bloodhound books
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Wife to Derek, mother to four and grandmother to nine.
Our lovely rescue dog Liffey completes my family and ensures that I take regular breaks from my desk! -
Charlie N. Holmberg
Charlie N. Holmberg is a Wall Street Journal and Amazon Charts bestselling author of fantasy and romance fiction, including the Paper Magician series, the Spellbreaker series, and the Whimbrel House series, and writes contemporary romance under C. N. Holmberg. She is published in over twenty languages and is a Goodreads Choice Award, ALA, and RITA finalist. Born in Salt Lake City, Charlie was raised a Trekkie alongside three sisters who also have boy names. A BYU alumna, she discovered in her thirties that she’s actually a cat person. She lives with her family in Utah. Visit her at www.charlienholmberg.com.
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Amazon: amzn.to/2BXoQNZ
Instagram: Instagram.com/cnholmberg
Facebook: Facebook.com/cnholmberg
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Kelsey James
Kelsey James is a historical fiction author, content marketer and former travel editor. A graduate of Dartmouth College with degrees in Creative Writing and Classical Studies, she currently lives with her family outside New York City and can be found online at KelseyJamesAuthor.com.
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Victoria Helen Stone
Wall Street Journal bestselling writer Victoria Helen Stone, author of the runaway hit Jane Doe, pens critically acclaimed novels of dark intrigue and emotional suspense. Her work includes Follow Her Down, At the Quiet Edge, Problem Child, Half Past, and the chart-toppers False Step, and Evelyn, After. Bald-Faced Liar is her tenth suspense.
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Victoria writes in her home office in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, far from her origins in the flattest plains of Minnesota, Texas, and Oklahoma. She enjoys gorgeous summer trail hikes in the mountains almost as much as she enjoys staying inside by the fire during winter. Victoria is passionate about dessert, true crime, and her terror of mosquitoes, which have targeted her in a diabolical conspiracy to -
Danielle M. Wong
Danielle M. Wong is a travel-obsessed author of psychological thrillers. She pens the type of stories that keep her up at night, featuring gripping scenes, complex characters, and twist-filled plots. She has been published to critical acclaim, earning Independent Press, Reader’s Favorite, and International Book Awards, among others. Danielle’s writing has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, HuffPost, PopSugar, and Writer’s Digest. She is currently working on her next novel.
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Judithe Little
Judithe Little is the USA Today bestselling author of THE CHANEL SISTERS, an Amazon Editors’ Pick, and WICKWYTHE HALL. She grew up surrounded by history in Virginia, where she attended the University of Virginia and the University of Virginia School of Law. She also spent a semester at the Institut Catholique in Paris, France, where she fell in love with everything French. A writer of historical fiction, Judithe has a passion to bring forgotten but significant events or people from the past to light in the hopes of helping understand where we are today.
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For book news and more, you can follow Judithe on instagram at @judithelittle. -
Heather Frimmer
Heather Frimmer is a radiologist specializing in breast and emergency room imaging. Her first novel, Bedside Manners, was published in 2018 and has received several awards including National Indie Excellence, Readers' Favorite and Independent Press awards. She completed her medical training at Weill-Cornell Medical College, New York Presbyterian-Cornell and Yale New Haven Hospital. She lives with her husband and two children in suburban Connecticut.
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Kirsten Mickelwait
Kirsten Mickelwait has been passionate about reading and writing for as long as she can remember, but her love of literature was really ignited as an English major at UC Berkeley, where she discovered James Joyce and the expatriate writers of 1920s Paris. Her historical novel, The Ashtrays Are Full and the Glasses Are Empty, features many of these characters, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Gertrude Stein, and Dorothy Parker. Her memoir, The Ghost Marriage, was published in 2021. Kirsten is an alumna of the Community of Writers, the Napa Valley Writers Conference, the Kauai Writers' Conference, and several other writers' workshops. She has another book in the pipeline—a speculative novel—and is currently at
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Ellen Won Steil
Ellen Won Steil is the bestselling author of Fortune and the forthcoming Becoming Marlow Fin. She grew up in Iowa in a Korean-American family and earned her BA in journalism from Drake University and law degree from William Mitchell College of Law. She lives in Minnesota with her husband and two young sons. Ellen believes most good stories have at least a hint of darkness.
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Elise Hart Kipness
Elise Hart Kipness is a former television sports reporter turned thriller writer. Lights Out is based on her experience in the high-pressure, adrenaline-pumping world of live TV. Like her protagonist, she chased marquee athletes through the tunnels of Madison Square Garden and stood before glaring lights, reporting to national audiences.
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In addition to reporting for Fox Sports Network, Elise was a news reporter at New York’s WNBC-TV, News 12 Long Island, and the Associated Press. She is currently co-president of Sisters in Crime Connecticut, as well as a member of Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. Elise graduate from Brown University and lives in Connecticut with her family and three labradoodles. -
Jessica Bryant Klagmann
Jessica Bryant Klagmann grew up in New England and studied writing in Fairbanks, Alaska. Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in environmental journals like Whitefish Review and Terrain.org, among others. She is the author of the novels This Impossible Brightness (2024) and North of the Sunlit River (2025).
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Kristin Owens
Kristin grew up in Buffalo, New York and moved immediately after the Bill’s fourth Super Bowl loss for better odds. She now resides in sticky southwest Florida and watches her hair expand by the minute.
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She earned a PhD in Higher Education Administration and held academic positions at Penn State, University of Maryland, University of Alaska Anchorage, and Mat-Su College. She also taught a variety of subjects (from ballroom dancing to graduate statistics) and was chosen Teacher of the Year by Aims Community College students.
Holding certifications with the Court of Master Sommeliers and Cicerone, she travels the world writing about wonderful wines, beautiful beers, and surprising spirits. She speaks fluent German and crappy French.
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Donna Jones Alward
Since 2006, New York Times bestseller Donna Jones Alward has enchanted readers with stories of happy endings and homecomings that have won several awards and been translated into over a dozen languages. She’s worked as an administrative assistant, teaching assistant, in retail and as a stay-at-home-mom, but always knew her degree in English Literature would pay off, as she is now happy to be a full-time writer. Her new historical fiction tales blend her love of history with characters who step beyond their biggest fears to claim the lives they desire.
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Donna currently lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, with her husband and two cats. You can often find her near the water, either kayaking on the lake or walking the sandy beaches to refill her creati -
Andrea Catalano
Andrea Catalano is a historical novelist who holds a master of philosophy in historical studies degree from University of Cambridge, UK. Originally from the Boston area, she currently lives in Texas with her husband, children, two fluffy cats, and many, many books.
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Kat Armstrong
Kat Armstrong grew up in Bristol, and became an English lecturer after writing a doctoral thesis on eighteenth-century fiction at the University of Oxford. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Manchester, and has written articles for The Guardian as well as a scholarly study of Daniel Defoe.
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Kat’s debut novel, A Pair of Sharp Eyes, was published by Hookline Books in September 2019. -
Ruby Soames
Ruby Soames is a writer and university lecturer who lives in France with her two children and journalist husband.
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Her first novel, 'Seven Days to Tell You' was published as a result of the Hookline Novel Competition 2010. It also won the People's Book Prize, Winter 2011. 'Mothers, Fathers & Lovers' is her second novel and 'Homewrecked' has just come out this year!
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Huw Langridge
Thanks to his English teacher at Holland Park School, Huw realised that writing (and reading) was actually pretty enjoyable, but it wasn’t until a few things happened during the 1990s that he realised that he could be inspired into bringing out his own literary voice.
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Whilst lying on his back in the middle of a starry night with a bunch of friends on a summer beach holiday in Selsey Bill, staring into space while a CD player filled their heads with the epic 46-minute ambient track “Waiting for Cousteau” by Jean-Michel Jarre, Huw was filled with the vertiginous sensation that he could actually by lying on the bottom of the Earth, looking down at the universe, and it was only a little bit of gravity that was holding him in place.
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Gregory Galloway
Gregory Galloway received an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His first novel, As Simple As Snow, was a recipient of the Alex Award.
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Genevieve Morrissey
Genevieve Morrissey is an avid student of British and American social history, who, through one of those strange little quirks of fate, spends most of her days talking with scientists. THEA, her most recent novel, is a coming-of-age story set in 1920s Oklahoma City. MARRIAGE AND HANGING is a historical mystery set in early 19th-century New England. Her post-apocalyptic ANTLANDS series explores a future history of societies coping with the loss of civilization, and their attempts to rebuild it.
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In addition to writing, Genevieve enjoys reading obscure books, travel, and solitude. -
Claudia H. Long
Claudia H. Long has written in a wide range of genres. She first wrote historical fiction, beginning with Josefina's Sin. Following Josefina's Sin, Claudia wrote The Duel for Consuelo, featuring the Secret Jews of Mexico, and Chains of Silver, set in the silver mining city of Zacatecas in 1753.
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Turning her attention to family history, her next book, Nine Tenths of the Law, was published by Kasva Press. Based on her mother's survival in World War 2, and featuring a contemporary mystery starring two daughters as they searched for an artifact stolen during that war, this book broke new ground for Claudia. The second book in the Zara and Lilly series, Our Lying Kin, came out from Kasva in 2023.
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Morag Edwards
After trying many different forms of writing, in 2005 I decided that I wanted to focus on the novel and took a leave of absence from my work as an educational psychologist to complete an M.A at Manchester University’s Centre for New Writing. I have over thirty years' experience of the impact of early childhood experience upon adult relationships and use this knowledge to develop my characters' personalities, even in historical fiction. Once I know the child, I have the adult!
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'The Jacobite’s Wife' is the first book in the Jacobite Saga and is a fictionalised account of the life of Winifred Herbert, later Countess of Nithsdale. As a Scottish child, I learned about her role in her husband's dramatic escape from the Tower of London but in resea -
Laura Dowers
I'm a historical fiction author, who so far, has written books set in the Tudor era, Ancient Rome and the 1930s.
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VISIT MY AMAZON PAGE:
https://www.amazon.com/Laura-Dowers
VISIT ME ON FACEBOOK:
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TAKE A LOOK AT MY PINTEREST:
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/lauradowe... -
Katharine Johnson
Katharine Johnson grew up in Bristol and now divides her time between Berkshire and Lucca, Italy. After doing a History degree she trained to be a journalist and has worked for a variety of magazines, writing about everything including the kitchen sink. She's loved writing since childhood and wrote her first book aged nine. When not writing she can usually be found walking her spaniel, doing the school run, playing netball or being a room guide in a stately home.
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Katharine loves to hear from readers so if you fancy a chat do get in touch
https://www.facebook.com/Katharinejoh...