Sarah Ward (novelist)

Sarah Rhiannon Ward (living) is an English novelist and critic living in the Peak District of rural Derbyshire. She writes a crime fiction series as Sarah Ward and has also written a Gothic thriller as Rhiannon Ward.[1][2]

Works

Fiction

A series of four novels by Ward – In Bitter Chill (2015), A Deadly Thaw (2017), A Patient Fury (2018, chosen as "Thriller of the Month" by The Observer) and The Shrouded Path (2019) – are set in the Derbyshire Dales, where she lives. They feature a female detective, Connie Childs. The Northern English Lancashire Evening Post called the fourth novel "moody, menacing and with more than a hint of the macabre, this is a mystery that grips like a raw day in the Peaks."[3]

The books are set in and near the fictional town of Bampton, which the author states "is partly based on Buxton with its Georgian architecture, Bakewell, which is a well-heeled market town with a strong tourist industry, and Cromford with its canal and fantastic industrial heritage."[4]

Ward's latest novel, The Quickening (2021), is described as a Gothic thriller. It appeared under the name Rhiannon Ward. All her books have been published in the United Kingdom by Faber. At least two have also appeared in the United States.[5]

Critiques

Ward has written frequent accounts of work by others, in the British newspapers The Guardian and the Sunday Express magazine, in the freeby Metro, and elsewhere, including the Los Angeles Review of Books.[6] She reviews crime fiction widely on her Crimepieces site.[1]

Ward is Membership Secretary of the Crime Writers' Association and an associate board member of Derby Book Festival.[7]

Private life

Ward related in a press interview: "I grew up in the neighbouring county of Cheshire and then after university in Liverpool, I lived first in London and then in Athens, Greece. When I returned to the UK I briefly lived in London but decided I preferred to be out of the capital so moved to Derbyshire.... [This] coincided with changes in my personal life."[4]

Ward was briefly married in 1999 to the English actor Tom Hardy. They were divorced in 2004.[8]

Sarah Ward gained much information about British police procedures past and present from a cousin (named only as Peter), who retired as a chief inspector from the force in Dyfed–Powys Police, Wales.[4]

References
  1. CrimePieces, author's blog. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
  2. Librarians' site. Retrieved 21 January 2021.
  3. Faber publications. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
  4. TripFiction, 12 September 2016. Interview Retrieved 15 January 2021.
  5. Macmillan page. Retrieved 15 January 2015.
  6. Brief biography. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
  7. Crime Readers' Association. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  8. Bustle, 3 September 2015.
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