I’m Tessa Blackthorn, and I write psychological mysteries inspired by the streets, history and hidden corners of York.

I was born in Shrewsbury, but I spent most of my school years in York, where I attended The Mount. Looking back, I suspect those years settled something long before I realised it. By the time I left school, York already felt more like home than anywhere I had technically come from. Some people inherit a hometown; I grew into mine.

I studied English Literature at the University of York because I liked stories that didn’t behave and because it gave me a perfectly respectable excuse to read obsessively. Edinburgh tried hard to keep me after my postgraduate years—it’s very persuasive, in that dramatic, windswept sort of way—but York tugged me back. I suspect it had already decided I belonged.

For a while I taught at the university. I loved introducing students to books that had stayed with me for years, but I gradually realised I was becoming far more interested in the stories I wanted to tell myself. Eventually I stopped pretending I wasn’t writing a novel and admitted defeat.

Now I write psychological noir about the shadows that gather beneath ordinary lives. I’m fascinated by the things people don’t say, the private histories they carry, and the quiet moments that change everything. York has plenty of those. So do we, if we’re honest.

I’ve also made peace with the fact that I’m a little odd. It turns out oddness is rather useful for a writer.

It notices things.