Katherine Reay Books in Order

If you want the most bookish place to begin: Dear Mr. Knightley → Lizzy and Jane → The Brontë Plot
If you want romance with travel and a fresh setting: A Portrait of Emily Price → The Austen Escape
If you want small-town community stories: The Printed Letter Bookshop → Of Literature and Lattes
If you want historical suspense: The London House → A Shadow in Moscow → The Berlin Letters → The English Masterpiece
If you want nonfiction: Awful Beautiful Life

Katherine Reay grew up in Atlanta, later spent part of high school in East Lansing, Michigan, and went on to Northwestern University, where she studied history, earned a master's in marketing, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. Books were part of her world early. Jane Austen, the Brontës, fantasy, and mysteries all found a place there, and that mix still shows up in the way she writes.

Before novels, Reay worked in marketing and moved often with her husband's technology career, living in places that included Ireland, England, Seattle, Austin, and the Chicago area. Those moves gave her a feel for outsiders, fresh starts, and the quiet work of building a life in a new place. That thread runs through much of her fiction.

She came to writing a little sideways.

In 2009, after a serious injury in Austin, she was forced to slow down. Friends brought books to the hospital, and instead of reaching for brand-new stories, she found herself returning to old favorites, especially Austen, the Brontës, and other classics she already loved. Out of that season came the idea that became Dear Mr. Knightley, her 2013 debut, a novel told through letters by a young woman learning to speak in her own voice.

That book opened the door.

Her early novels are full of literary echoes without feeling stiff or overly clever. Lizzy and Jane brings food, family grief, and sisterhood into conversation with Austen. The Brontë Plot follows a rare-book dealer whose shaky choices finally catch up with her. A Portrait of Emily Price moves from Atlanta to Italy and mixes art restoration, romance, and the harder task of letting go. Readers who stick with Reay's contemporary fiction often come for the bookish setup, then stay for the warmth, the family knots, and the way her characters slowly earn their second chances.

With The Printed Letter Bookshop and Of Literature and Lattes, she built Winsome, an Illinois town where bookstores, coffee shops, and bruised but decent people keep crossing paths. Later, her fiction turned more openly toward historical suspense. The London House works through family secrets and wartime letters, while A Shadow in Moscow and The Berlin Letters move into Cold War espionage, code breaking, and divided loyalties. By the time she reached The English Masterpiece, set in London's 1970s art world, she was clearly enjoying larger external stakes while still keeping her attention on character.

Across both the contemporary and historical books, Reay keeps returning to a few big questions. How do people live with what they have not faced yet? What can be repaired, and what has to be released? Her novels often center women at turning points, people who look capable on the outside but are still carrying old fears, family fractures, or half-buried grief.

She has also written beyond fiction. She coauthored the nonfiction book Awful Beautiful Life with Becky Powell, helping shape a real story of loss, debt, faith, and community into a deeply personal narrative. She has written essays and articles too, and she remains very much a public-facing book person through reader conversations and online book talk.

These days Reay lives in Montana with her husband and their dogs, and she is a mother of three. The setting around her has changed over the years, but the central fascination has not, she is still writing about people trying to find their footing, and about the books, places, and hard choices that help them do it.