Claire Legrand is an American fantasy writer renowned for her New York Times bestselling Empirium trilogy. Legrand has published eleven novels for children, young adults, and adults.
Claire Legrand was born in North Texas. Legrand holds a BA in English Literature and an MS in Library Science from the University of North Texas. Before becoming a full-time author, she worked as a librarian.
Legrand debuted with the middle-grade novel The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls in August 2012. The book was nominated for the Michigan Mitten Award and the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Book Award. A few of her subsequent works include The Year of Shadows (2013) and Winterspell (2014), with a prequel novella, Summerfall, and an epilogue, Homecoming.
In addition to individual novels, Legrand contributed to anthologies like The Cabinet of Curiosities (2014), Guys Read: Terrifying Tales (2015), and Been There, Done That (2015).
Some Kind of Happiness (2016) marked her return to middle-grade fiction, earning an Edgar Award nomination and inclusion in best book lists by Publishers Weekly and the New York Library.
Furyborn (2018), the first book of the Empirium trilogy, debuted at #4 on the New York Times Best Seller List. The series continued with Kingsbane (2019) and concluded with Lightbringer (2020).
Sawkill Girls (2018), her first young adult horror novel, was nominated for a Lambda Award and the Bram Stoker Award. Thornlight (2021) and Extasia (2022) followed, with Extasia returning to young adult horror.
Her latest work, A Crown of Ivy and Glass (2023), is the first book in the Middlemist Trilogy, marking her debut in adult literature. It became a USA Today bestseller and was selected as one of Amazon’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy books of 2023.
The sequel, A Song of Ash and Moonlight, will be released in September 2024.
Claire Legrand now lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
Photo credit: claire-legrand.com
