Katharine Schellman began her writing career in 2020 with the launch of her debut historical mystery, The Body in the Garden, a whodunnit set in Regency England featuring amateur sleuth Lily Adler. The Body in the Garden was named a Suspense Magazine Best Book of 2020, and Katharine was named one of BookPage’s 16 Women to Watch in 2020. Lily’s sleuthing adventures continue in the Lily Adler Mysteries, and readers can meet her anytime in Katharine’s free Lily Adler short mystery, Pistols at Dawn.

In 2022, Katharine began publishing her second series, the Nightingale Mysteries, a Jazz Age drama full of grit, glamour, and characters who walk the line between hero and criminal. The first book, Last Call at the Nightingale, was a New York Times editors’ pick in June 2022, a Library Journal Best Crime Fiction of 2022, and named one of the best mysteries of the summer by Publisher’s Weekly, Goodreads, Bustle, and more. The fourth and final Nightingale Mystery, Last Dance Before Dawn, will be released in June 2025.

Katharine’s work has been glowingly reviewed in multiple publications and been dubbed “worthy of Rex Stout or Agatha Christie” (Library Journal, starred review). In 2024, Katharine was nominated for a Killer Nashville Silver Falchion award, and in 2025 she was a Zibby Media National Book Awards winner for Best Book for the History Lover (The Last Note of Warning, Nightingale Mystery #3).

Katharine graduated with a BA from the College of William & Mary in Virginia, after which she worked as an actor and a political consultant. She now lives and writes in the mountains of Virginia in the company of her family, an ever-growing TBR pile, and the many houseplants she keeps accidentally murdering. 

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