V. E. Schwab

Victoria Elizabeth Schwab was born in California in 1987 and grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. She earned a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis in 2009, then went to the University of Edinburgh to study how monsters were depicted in medieval art. Monsters, villains and outsiders show up in nearly everything she writes.

She debuted in 2011 with The Near Witch, a YA fantasy. Early on she settled on two bylines: Victoria Schwab for children's and YA books, V. E. Schwab for adult ones. On the younger side came The Archived (2013), the Monsters of Verity duology opened by This Savage Song (2016), and the City of Ghosts series (2018), about a girl who can see ghosts.

Her adult debut was Vicious (2013), about two former college roommates who figure out how to gain powers and end up as enemies. Film rights went that same year to companies tied to Ridley Scott. The sequel, Vengeful (2018), won the Goodreads Choice Award for Science Fiction.

In 2015, A Darker Shade of Magic launched Shades of Magic: there are several parallel Londons, and a rare magician can cross between them. The trilogy wrapped in 2017, spun off comics set in the same world and, in 2023, opened a new chapter with The Fragile Threads of Power.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020) is the book most readers know. In France in 1714, a young woman makes a bargain to live forever and pays with being forgotten: no one remembers her once she leaves the room. The story spans three centuries and became an international bestseller. A film adaptation is in development, written by David Lowery, with Schwab among the producers.

Gallant (2022), a gothic YA fantasy, earned another Goodreads Choice. On TV she created Netflix's First Kill from her own vampire short story; it premiered in 2022 and was canceled after one season. Vampires returned in Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil (2025), which follows three women turned in different eras, from 16th-century Spain to present-day Boston, and won the Goodreads Choice Award for Fantasy.