Susan Dennard

Susan Dennard was on course for a doctorate when she chose writing instead in 2009, leaving behind a master's degree in marine biology and work on overfishing. She had grown up in Dalton, Georgia. Something Strange and Deadly, her first novel, came out in 2012 and set the walking dead loose in Philadelphia in 1876. A Darkness Strange and Lovely continued the story a year later: Eleanor Fitt, who has lost her brother, crosses to Paris after the Spirit-Hunters Joseph, Jie and Daniel, finds that city overrun in the same way, and falls in with Oliver, a young man whose command of necromancy is as tempting as it is dangerous. Dennard went on to the Witchlands novels, which began with Truthwitch in 2016 and entered the American bestseller list at number four, and to the Luminaries trilogy between 2022 and 2024. She writes Misfits & Daydreamers, a newsletter of craft advice for other writers.