A.J. Banner

A.J. Banner creates psychological suspense that places intimate relationships under pressure in closely observed Pacific Northwest settings. Born in India and raised in North America, she earned degrees from UC Berkeley and now lives in the region where much of her fiction unfolds. Lake Union Publishing released In Another Light in 2021. The novel follows Phoebe Glassman, a funeral cosmetologist grieving her husband Logan and their young daughter. At work, Phoebe encounters Pauline Steele, a woman who looks strikingly like her and carries an image tied to Logan's past. The discovery sends Phoebe through Bayport, Washington, as she questions what she remembers about her family and what others may have concealed. Banner keeps the focus on identity, grief, trust, and manipulated perception instead of a conventional police inquiry. In Another Light continues the domestic tension found in her earlier novels The Good Neighbor, The Twilight Wife, and The Poison Garden, using a familiar home landscape to unsettle both protagonist and reader.