Sarah Rayne

Sarah Rayne is an English award-winning author of psychological thriller novels. She debuted in 1982 with the fiction Mask of the Fox. Since then, Rayne has written more than 30 books to date. Sarah’s novels have been translated into German, Dutch, Russian, and Turkish. Rayne also writes under the name Bridget Wood and Frances Gordon.

Sarah Rayne, the daughter of an Irish comedy actor, began writing in her teens, including plays for the Lower Third to perform in her convent school.

For many years, Sarah was active in amateur theatre. Her other hobbies include theater, history, music, and old houses. This fascination with old buildings is strongly apparent in many of her settings — Infanger Cottage in Song of the Damned (2018), the eerie old watermill Twygrist in Spider Light (2006), and the haunted Charect House in Property of a Lady (2011).

Music has also influenced a number of her plots: the eerie death lament ‘Thaisa’s Song’ in The Bell Tower (2016), the sinister ‘Dark Cadence’ in The Devil’s Harmony (2021), and the story of the scandalous 19th-century violinist, Roman Volf, in Death Notes (2017).

But it was the theatrical world of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that inspired her later work, set against the backdrop of Victorian music hall Linklighters in Music Macabre (2019). And the creation of the Amaranth Theatre for the irrepressible Fitzglen family, who make their first appearance in Book One of the Theatre of Thieves series — Chalice of Darkness (2023).

Her work has received considerable recognition, with Tower of Silence (2003) being long-listed for the 2005 Theakston Award.

Photo creidt: www.sarahrayne.co.uk