Zoë Marriott

Zoë has known that she wanted to be a writer since she read 'The Magic Faraway Tree' by Enid Blyton at age eight. She's never changed her mind in all the years since then.

She completed her first manuscript - a truly embarrassing romance novel - at age sixteen, and kept on writing books and submitting them until she had collected rejections from nearly every publisher in the UK and two in Australia. She eventually got her first publishing contract when she was twenty-two - but had to wait until she was twenty-four to see that book (The Swan Kingdom) published. Her Young Adult novels have been longlisted for the Branford Boase Award, shortlisted for the Leeds Book Award and the Lancashire Book of the Year, and have won a Junior Library Guild Selection, a USBBY Outstanding International Listing, the Hillingdon Book Award and the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation Prize.

Over the years Zoë has worked as an admin assistant, a dental nurse, a civil servant, and a reader for a literary scout. She has designed and run over one hundred creative writing workshops in schools and libraries, and from 2017-19 she was the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at York St. John University. Zoë is currently pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing at the Open University - as part of which, she wrote her first timeslip novel for an adult readership. Her doctorate and the associated novel are probably the thing she's most proud of achieving.

This special book - THE MOONLIT MAZE - is a dual timeline narrative, with the viewpoint shared between a contemporary heroine and one in the 1920s. The story deals with hidden histories, dangerous familiy secrets, forbidden love, and female creativity and friendship. THE MOONLIT MAZE will be released by Headline in June 2025.

Zoë lives in a little house in a town by the sea, with a manic spaniel called Ruskin (otherwise known as Trash Puppy, Snaggletooth, or the supervillain-in-training) and far too many books.