No items found.
🍂 New Season Events Include Bridgerton Author Julia Quinn Live Class
Sign up
No items found.
Mystery
Suspense
Contemporary & Women’s Fiction
Historical Fiction

Kate Riordan

Writing Coach

Kate Riordan is the bestselling author of seven novels, and has been a Richard and Judy Book Club choice. Her novels are published by Penguin Random House.

Kate Riordan. Writing coaching at The Novelry.

Kate Riordan is the author of seven novels and short stories. The Girl in the Photograph, a Sunday Times bestseller, is a haunting dual timeline novel about two women entwined by fate, published by Penguin in 2015 and described in the Sunday Times as ‘rich and atmospheric’ and a must-read for fans of Du Maurier’s Rebecca. It was Penguin’s bestselling ebook that summer.

She has had three historical novels published by Penguin in the U.K.—The Girl in the Photograph, The Shadow Hour and The Stranger, which have sold in excess of 150,000 copies and been praised for their atmospheric evocation of nineteenth-century England. The Stranger was a Top Ten Red magazine choice of that year.

Published in September 2020, The Heatwave was a must-read Richard and Judy Book Club thriller pick. A tense psychological thriller set in Provence, it went to No.1 in the Apple fiction chart. Published in 2022, Summer Fever has been praised as a ‘sexy, sultry immersive read.’

Writing as Katherine Fleet, The Liars, was published in 2024 in the thriller genre, garnering glowing reviews: ‘Taut, tense, stylish and incredibly atmospheric, with a thrilling twist’ Daisy Buchanan and ‘Compelling and utterly transportive, a scorching summer read.’ Lucy Clarke.

Kate Riordan is a writer and journalist. She started out as an editorial assistant at the Guardian, followed by a stint as deputy editor for the lifestyle section of Time Out. Kate has written for Red, Stella, British Airways’s High Life, Grand Design magazine, the Guardian, Grazia, Living etc. and the Sunday Times.

Kate lives in the Cotswolds with two rescue dogs and is at work on her new novel. If you’re writing mystery, suspense or historical fiction you’ll find Kate a supportive and inspiring writing coach.

‘Read, read, read. I was a reader way before I was a writer. You will learn what you like and what you don’t like and what’s effective. If you read a book and you’re on the edge of your seat, you can look at why that is.’

Kate Riordan
quotemark icon
A Richard and Judy Book Club must-read
Heatwave
The Liars
Summer Fever
The Girl in the Photograph
The Stranger
The Shadow Hour
Sanditon

Novels by

Kate Riordan

Heatwave

Heatwave

Elodie was beautiful. Elodie was smart. Elodie was troubled.

Elodie is dead.

Sylvie hasn’t been back to her crumbling French family home in years. Not since the death of her eldest daughter Elodie. Every corner of the old house feels haunted by memories of her—memories she has tried to forget. But as temperatures rise, and forest fires rage through the French countryside, a long-buried family secret is about to come to light. Because there’s something Sylvie’s been hiding about what really happened to Elodie that summer. And it could change everything.

The must-read Richard and Judy Book Club thriller pick.

Show more
The Liars

The Liars

I thought I saw her today. Down by the water. It was her hair I noticed. Do you ever see her, Lex? Does she haunt you too?

I haven’t been back to Eos since I first met my stepsister, Lex. It’s been 25 years since that summer.

Since we went from strangers to sisters. Since Abigail went missing. Since we told the first lie.

Now we’re back together on the island. So much has changed since we were teenagers. We’ve both tried to move on from the past—from each other.

But the island won’t let us escape our secrets. Only me and Lex know the truth about Abigail.

We’ve been living a lie for so long. And if the truth comes out—neither of us will survive it...

Show more
Summer Fever

Summer Fever

Nick and Laura are the hosts: pretending their marriage isn’t on the rocks. Madison and Bastian are the guests: neither is remotely who they claim to be.

Under the scorching Mediterranean sun, no secret is safe. No betrayal goes unnoticed.

Two couples. But will either survive the summer...

Show more
The Girl in the Photograph

The Girl in the Photograph

When Alice Eveleigh arrives at Fiercombe Manor during the long, languid summer of 1933, she finds a house steeped in mystery and brimming with secrets. Sadness permeates its empty rooms and the isolated valley seems crowded with ghosts, none more alluring than Elizabeth Stanton, whose only traces remain in a few tantalizingly blurred photographs. Why will no-one speak of her? What happened a generation ago to make her vanish? As the sun beats down relentlessly, Alice becomes ever more determined to unearth the truth about the girl in the photograph and stop her own life from becoming an eerie echo of Elizabeth’s.

Show more
The Stranger

The Stranger

Cornwall, 1940. In the hushed hours of deepest night a young woman is found washed up on the rocks. Was it a tragic accident? Or should the residents of Penhallow have been more careful about whom they invited in?

In the midst of war, three women arrive seeking safety at Penhallow Hall. Each is looking to escape her past. But one of them is not there by choice.

As the threat of invasion mounts and the nightly blackouts feel longer and longer, tensions between the close-knit residents rise until dark secrets start to surface. In a house full of strangers, who do you trust?

Show more
The Shadow Hour

The Shadow Hour

Harriet Jenner is just 21 when she walks through the gates of Fenix House. Reeling from a personal tragedy, she doesn’t expect her new life as a governess to be easy. But she certainly does not foresee the spell Fenix House will cast.

Almost 50 years later, Harriet’s granddaughter Grace follows in her footsteps. For Grace, raised on Harriet’s spellbinding stories, Fenix House is a magical place suspended in time. But the faded grandeur of the mansion begins to reveal the holes in Harriet’s story and Grace finds herself in a place of secrets and shadows. Fenix House hides truths about her family.

Show more
Sanditon

Sanditon

In 2019, Kate was honored to be asked to write the official novelization of a major TV drama, Sanditon, to complete Jane Austen’s last, unfinished novel.

When a chance accident transports Charlotte Heywood to the seaside town of Sanditon, her life changes forever. And when she meets the charming and slightly wild Sidney Parker, she finds herself caught up in a whirlwind of romance, betrayal and changing alliances—nobody in Sanditon is quite as they seem.

Discover the world Jane Austen left behind. Every coastal town has its secrets—but Sanditon has more than most.

Show more
arrow left
arrow right

Related Articles

No items found.