Sarah Rayne

Sarah Rayne began writing in her teens, and after a Convent education, which included writing plays for the Lower Third to perform, embarked on a variety of jobs.

Her first novel was published in 1982, and since then she has written more than 25 books, including eight psychological thrillers which met with considerable acclaim, with Tower of Silence long-listed for the prestigious Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year.

Her haunted house series, featuring the Oxford don, Michael Flint and the antiques dealer, Nell West, has received high praise from the critics,and the books have been described as ‘eruditely eerie’.

In 2016 she began the series of psychological thrillers, with the music researcher/historian, Phineas Fox, at the centre. The first title in the series was Death Notes – Book 4, Music Macabre, was published in 2019, and Book 5, The Devil’s Harmony, is due out at the end of 2020.

Sarah’s widely-read fantasy books – the Wolfking quartet, first written and published in the early 1990s – have recently been re-issued in digital format, as have six contemporary horror books originally written under a pseudonym.

Short stories to date are The Unknown Crime, The Forgotten Manuscript, A Clever Evil, and The Masquerade.

As well as being published in America and Australia, Sarah’s books have been translated into German, Dutch, Russian, and Turkish.

The daughter of an Irish comedy actor, Sarah was for many years active in amateur theatre, and lists among her hobbies theatre, history, music, and old houses. Much of her inspiration comes from the histories and atmospheres of old buildings, a fact that is strongly apparent in many of her settings – Charect House in Property of a Lady, Twygrist Mill in Spider Light, and Mortmain House in A Dark Dividing. Music also influences a number of her plots –the eerie death lament, ‘Thaisa’s Song’ in The Bell Tower, the music hall songs in Ghost Song, and the creation of the scandalous 19^th century violinist, Roman Volf, in Death Notes.