I'm a writer and artist, sometimes professionally. I like Victoriana, ghosts, historical true crime, and cats, and I don't like noise or having appointments to keep. I have two psychology degrees and work at a research institute in Boston.

Favourite things

  • Colour: Haint blue
  • Ice cream: Mint chocolate chip
  • Movies: The Conjuring, The Prestige, Speed Racer, That Thing You Do!
  • TV series (currently airing): Good Omens, Our Flag Means Death, What We Do in the Shadows, Yellowjackets
  • TV series (completed): The Haunting of Hill House, Fringe, Broadchurch
Books (fiction)
  • American Gods by Neil Gaiman
  • Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
  • Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson
  • The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
  • Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsey
  • Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
  • Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
  • The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
  • A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin
Books (non-fiction)    Read excerpt
  • The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder by Daniel Stashower
  • The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris
  • Did She Kill Him?: A Victorian Tale of Deception, Adultery, and Arsenic by Kate Colquhoun
  • The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story by Kate Summerscale
  • The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, or The Murder at Road Hill House by Kate Summerscale
  • The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the 19th Century’s On-line Pioneers by Tom Standage
Albums    Listen
  • Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill
  • Bishop Briggs, Church of Scars
  • Nine Inch Nails, Year Zero
  • Pink Floyd, PULSE
  • Taylor Swift, Reputation
  • Tori Amos, Boys For Pele