Authors Similar like J.M. Varese

Laura Purcell

Laura Purcell is a former bookseller and lives in Colchester with her husband and pet guinea pigs.

Her first novel for Raven Books THE SILENT COMPANIONS won the WHSmith Thumping Good Read Award 2018 and featured in both the Zoe Ball and Radio 2 Book Clubs. Other Gothic novels include THE CORSET (THE POISON THREAD in USA), BONE CHINA and THE SHAPE OF DARKNESS (2020)

Laura’s historical fiction about the Hanoverian monarchs, QUEEN OF BEDLAM and MISTRESS OF THE COURT, was published by Myrmidon.

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Cathryn Kemp

Cathryn is a Sunday Times bestselling ghostwriter and journalist, with a prolific career writing celebrity, inspirational, true crime, addiction and nostalgia titles.
A Poisoner's Tale, published by Transworld/Penguin Random House on July 11th, 2024, is her first foray into historical fiction.
When not writing, Cathryn can be found braving the waves off the south coast or restoring her glorious Victorian wreck with her son Leonardo and cat Gingey.

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Essie Fox

My latest novel is called Dangerous, and it will be published by Orenda Books in April 2025. It's a slight change from my normal style of novels in that it's a historical crime mystery - but still very gothic. It's the story of Lord Byron in Venice, when a novel called The Vampyre is fraudulently published under his name, and he is then suspected of murder when several women of his acquaintance are found dead with wounds to their throats.

The Fascination which was published in HB in 2023 is set in the world of Victorian rural fairgrounds, the glamour of the London theatres and an anatomy museum in a shop on Oxford Street - based on one that really did exist! It's a book about deception, obsession, and what it is to be ''different'.

The Last

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Laura Purcell

Laura Purcell is a former bookseller and lives in Colchester with her husband and pet guinea pigs.

Her first novel for Raven Books THE SILENT COMPANIONS won the WHSmith Thumping Good Read Award 2018 and featured in both the Zoe Ball and Radio 2 Book Clubs. Other Gothic novels include THE CORSET (THE POISON THREAD in USA), BONE CHINA and THE SHAPE OF DARKNESS (2020)

Laura’s historical fiction about the Hanoverian monarchs, QUEEN OF BEDLAM and MISTRESS OF THE COURT, was published by Myrmidon.

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Kate Griffin

I've always loved getting lost in a good book. It's why I studied English Literature at university.
What a luxury to read novels for three years!
After a few false starts, I was taken on as a trainee reporter by a local newspaper where I worked very happily for several years.
I love old buildings and the stories they tell. I'm very lucky that my current work as press officer for a heritage charity allows me to visit and explore some amazing, inspiring places, including the wonderful Wiltons Music Hall in the East End.
Kitty Peck and the Music Hall Murders (published by Faber and Faber) is partly based on that building. 'Kitty' is my first book and later this year Templar will publish my first first book for children The Jade Boy , written

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Elizabeth Macneal

Elizabeth Macneal was born in Edinburgh and now lives in East London. She is a writer and potter and works from a small studio at the bottom of her garden. She read English Literature at Oxford University, before working in the City for several years. In 2017, she completed the Creative Writing MA at UEA in 2017 where she was awarded the Malcolm Bradbury scholarship.

The Doll Factory, Elizabeth's debut novel, won the Caledonia Noel Award 2018. It will be published in twenty-eight languages and TV rights have sold to Buccaneer Media.

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Stacey Halls

Stacey Halls grew up in Rossendale, Lancashire, as the daughter of market traders. She has always been fascinated by the Pendle witches. She studied journalism at the University of Central Lancashire and moved to London aged 21. She was media editor at The Bookseller and books editor at Stylist.co.uk, and has also written for Psychologies, the Independent and Fabulous magazine, where she now works as Deputy Chief Sub Editor. The Familiars is her first novel.

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Laura Shepherd-Robinson

Laura Shepherd-Robinson was born in Bristol in 1976. She has a BSc in Politics from the University of Bristol and an MSc in Political Theory from the London School of Economics. Laura worked in politics for nearly twenty years before re-entering normal life to complete an MA in Creative Writing at City University. She lives in London with her husband, Adrian.

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Polly Crosby

Polly Crosby grew up on the Suffolk coast, and now lives with her husband and son in the heart of Norfolk.

In 2018, Polly won Curtis Brown Creative’s Yesterday Scholarship, enabling her to write her debut novel, The Illustrated Child. Later the same year, she was awarded runner-up in the Bridport Prize’s Peggy Chapman Andrews Award for a First Novel, and she received the Annabel Abbs Creative Writing Scholarship for the prestigious MA at the University of East Anglia.

Polly's first book for Young Adults, This Tale is Forbidden, came out in January. Her next historical mystery, The House of Fever, is out in August.

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Anita Frank

A farmer’s daughter from Shropshire, Anita Frank studied English and American History at the University of East Anglia before moving to London to work in media analysis and communications. Frank currently lives in Berkshire with her husband and three children.

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Emma Hinds

Emma is a fiction writer and playwright living and working in the North of England. She graduated from St. Andrews University with an MLitt. in Creative Writing in 2014. She focuses on historical narratives, female voices, and Queer stories. She was longlisted for BBC Writersroom, and has been part of the Write Now Penguin and Random House project. In 2020, she was longlisted for the Mslexia Novel competition. Emma identifies as Queer and uses She/Her pronouns.

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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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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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Susan Stokes-Chapman

Susan Stokes-Chapman was born in 1985 and grew up in the historic Georgian city of Lichfield, Staffordshire. She studied for four years at Aberystwyth University, graduating with a BA in Education & English Literature and an MA in Creative Writing. Her debut novel, PANDORA, was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction prize 2020 as well as longlisted for the Bath Novel Award that same year. You can find Susan on Instagram and Twitter under the handle @SStokesChapman. Her website is www.susanstokeschapman.com.

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Rebecca Netley

Rebecca Netley grew up as part of an eccentric family in a house full of books and music and these things have fed her passions. Family and writing remain at the heart of Rebecca’s life. She lives in the UK with her husband, sons and an over-enthusiastic dog, who gives her writing tips.

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Freya Berry

Freya Berry always loved stories, but it took several years as a journalist to realise she loves the kind of truth that lies in fiction, not reality. (Or, to put it another way, making stuff up is more fun.)
Her second novel, The Birdcage Library, is out now: an adventuress discovers an old book containing clues about the disappearance of a woman who vanished 50 years before. Set between a Scottish castle in the 1930s and an exotic animal emporium in Gilded Age New York, it's a twisting Gothic tale of secrets, obsession and murder. Oh, and taxidermy.
Her first novel The Dictator's Wife, a high-stakes exploration of power, glamour and complicity, was shortlisted for the Authors' Club First Novel Award, a pick for the BBC's flagship book show

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Katie Lumsden

Katie Lumsden read Jane Eyre at the age of thirteen and never looked back. She spent her teenage years devouring nineteenth century literature, reading every Dickens, Brontë, Gaskell, Austen and Hardy novel she could find. She has a degree in English literature and history from the University of Durham and an MA in creative writing from Bath Spa University. Her short stories have been shortlisted for the London Short Story Prize and the Bridport Prize, and have been published in various literary magazines.

Katie's Youtube channel, Books and Things, has more than 29,000 subscribers. She lives in London and works as an editor.

Her debut novel, The Secrets of Hartwood Hall, was shortlisted for the HWA Debut Crown Award.

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Blessin Adams

Blessin Adams traded police work investigating today’s crime in the Norfolk Constabulary for academia, tracing the lives and deaths of people in early modern England. Blessin received her doctorate following research in early modern English law and literature at the University of East Anglia. As a fan of true crime she is fascinated by historical stories of murder and justice. She lives in Norfolk with her husband and two dogs, and is a beekeeper in her spare time.

Blessin's first book, Great and Horrible News, is currently available to order, and she is writing a second book due to be published in 2024.

She has also written a chapter titled 'Notebooks, Play and Legal Education at Middle Temple' in Mapping the Early Modern Inns of Court: Law,

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Naomi Kelsey

Naomi Kelsey is the winner of two Northern Writers’ Awards and of the HWA Dorothy Dunnett Competition 2021. Her fiction has been published in Mslexia magazine and shortlisted for several further awards including the Bridport Prize and the Bristol Prize. She also writes book reviews for ‘On the Tudor Trail’. By day she is an English teacher in Newcastle, where she lives with her husband, their two children and their dog. The Burnings is her first novel.

Naomi^^Kelsey

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Annabelle Marx

Annabelle is the author of two historical fiction novels: the bestselling The Herbalist's Secret and the recently published The Rebel of Seventh Avenue.

Brought up in Dorset, America, London, Hong Kong and Wiltshire, Annabelle has worked in photography, event production and marketing. But her passions are in food and writing.

Running her own cottage industry making handmade jams, jellies and chutneys she became the recipient of two Great Taste Awards.

When writing began to take over her life, she joined the Faber Academy and completed their How to Write a Novel course. Annabelle now lives between Sutherland and Wiltshire and recently finished an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.

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Lora Jones

Lora Jones is based in North Wales, UK. She is the author of THE MAGICIAN'S WIFE - a series of impossible mystery novels set in and around the world of stage magic.

Lora also hosts a popular podcast of the same name with her husband Barry, a professional magician.

Go to Lora's website to join her Readers' Club, and receive a free novella, plus original monthly short stories, all set in the world of THE MAGICIAN'S WIFE.

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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.

Buy books on Amazon

J.M. Varese

J.M. Varese similar authors