Louise is a London-based writer and editor with an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London. In 2018 she was appointed Features Editor at mironline.org, an online literary magazine, and is a regular contributor to their Author Not Present podcast. She was named one of The Observer’s ten best debut novelists of 2020. Her debut novel, This Lovely City (HQ, Harper Collins), was longlisted for the 2020 HWA Debut Crown. She is currently writing a series of crime novels set in the 1930s. The first of these, Miss Aldridge Regrets, was published in 2022. Louise is a content editor with The History Quill and its sister brand, Fabled Planet.

If Louise were stranded on a desert island, the two historical novels she would want with her are Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (which contains a brilliant twist, a plot worthy of Wilkie Collins, and an almost Dickensian cast of characters, while at the same time breathing new life into the genre), and The Book of Night Women by Marlon James, which is probably one of the most brutal books dealing with slavery in terms of the violence, but women are at the heart of it. Louise loves female characters who are of the period but who want more than they have. The protagonist, Lilith, is a murderer who will sacrifice anyone to save herself, yet the reader roots for her because her alternative is worse. It’s a fascinating read.