Katharine Johnson

Katharine Johnson is a British author renowned for her psychological suspense novels that delve into the secrets and choices of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Her most recent works, The Silence (2024) and The Secret (2024) set against the evocative backdrop of Tuscany.

Katharine Johnson was born in Bristol. She studied History at Cambridge before pursuing a career as a journalist and editor, contributing to property and lifestyle magazines.

Johnson’s writing career stems from a lifelong love of storytelling. “I’ve been writing stories for as long as I can remember,” she once shared. Her professional life began in journalism, but she returned to fiction later, describing it as fulfilling a long-held ambition.

Her novels, often described as psychological suspense, explore themes of marginalisation and delve into the motives behind people's actions rather than the crimes themselves.

The Silence (2024) is a reimagined edition of her 2017 novel. It follows Abby Fenton, a GP who seems to have a perfect life but harbours a devastating secret. The discovery of human remains at a Tuscan villa forces Abby to relive a summer from her teenage years, one marked by tragedy and concealed truths. As her repressed memories resurface, the carefully built façade of her present life is threatened. The novel is praised as “an edge-of-the-seat read” by Tessa Harris.

Her follow-up, The Secret (2024), explores love, lies, and betrayal in the Tuscan village of Santa Zita. Social pariah Sonia discovers an abandoned baby, leading to a lifetime of deception. Decades later, her past unravels when a friend investigates her family’s history, and the police probe a villa murder. The novel connects subtly to The Silence through shared settings and characters.

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