All about Kiran…

Kiran Millwood Hargrave is an internationally award-winning, Sunday Times bestselling novelist of more than a dozen books for children, young adults and adults.

Kiran’s books include The Girl of Ink & Stars, which was the winner of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2017; The Mercies, winner of a 2020 Betty Trask award, and Leila and the Blue Fox, winner of the Wainwright Prize 2023.

Her first YA novel, The Deathless Girls, a reimagining of the origin stories of the so-called ‘brides of Dracula’, was shortlisted for the YA Book Prize, and the Foyles Book of the Year 2019.

Her debut book for adults, The Mercies, previously titled Vardø, was subject to a 13-way auction and called ‘unquestionably the book of the 2018 London Book Fair’ by The Bookseller. The Mercies was published by Picador in February 2020, and debuted at number 1 on The Times Bestseller List, and number 5 on the Sunday Times Bestseller Chart. It won a Betty Trask Award and was named a NYT Most Notable Book of 2020. Her second novel for adults is The Dance Tree, and her third, Almost Life will publish in March 2026.

A Secret of Birds & Bone, her fourth MG novel, was published in October 2020, and was Blackwell’s Children’s Book of the Month. Julia and the Shark, and Leila and the Blue Fox, in collaboration with her husband Tom de Freston, have been shortlisted for numerous awards including the Waterstones Book of the Year, the UKLA Awards, and the Wainwright Prize. Julia and the Shark won the Waterstones Children’s Gift of the Year, and international honours in the US, Latvia, and Italy. Leila and the Blue Fox won the Wainwright Prize 2023.

In the Shadow of the Wolf Queen, first in a major new trilogy named The Geomancer, was published in August 2023. Book two, The Storm and the Sea Hawk, came out in August 2024, with The Ship of Strays publishing August 2025. A Geomancer World Book Day £1 tie in, The Wolf Trials, reached the top three in the UK charts.

You can follow Kiran on the following networks: Instagram, and Facebook.