Leona Deakin Books in Order

Leona Deakin was born in Staffordshire, and her path to fiction ran through psychology rather than publishing. She began her career with West Yorkshire Police, then built a long working life as a psychologist, studying behaviour, performance, and the pressures that make people crack. That background gives her crime fiction a grounded feel. Even when the plots are unusual, the human motives underneath them feel carefully thought through.

She knows how people think.

Over the years she has worked as an occupational psychologist and advised organisations that included the police, the military, the Crown Prosecution Service, and the corporate world. She has also spoken about the link between stories and psychology, and how both can help us understand ourselves and other people. That connection between professional insight and storytelling sits at the centre of everything she writes.

Before crime readers met Dr. Augusta Bloom, Deakin published Anomaly, a speculative novel about psychologist William York, Sorella Grey, and a world that feels slightly wrong from the moment he wakes up. It already showed the mix she still likes: big ideas, emotional stakes, and a steady interest in what happens inside a mind under strain.

Her best-known books are the Dr. Bloom thrillers, Gone, Lost, Hunt, and The Imposter. They follow psychologist and private investigator Dr. Augusta Bloom, usually alongside her investigative partner Marcus Jameson, as strange cases widen into something darker. In Gone, birthday cards and disappearances open the door to a deeply unsettling game. In Lost, an explosion, a missing naval officer, and vanished memories turn the mystery into something even harder to pin down.

Hunt sends Bloom undercover into the orbit of Artemis, a women's rights organisation that may not be what it seems, while The Imposter plays with stolen identities and a killer who appears to step into other people's lives. Readers who click with Deakin tend to like that combination of clever setup and emotional mess. Her books enjoy twists, but they are just as interested in fear, manipulation, obsession, and the stories people tell themselves.

She also writes as L. D. Smithson.

Under that name she published The Escape Room, a stand-alone thriller set on a remote sea fort where a reality show turns deadly. It is a neat example of her range. The premise is bigger and sharper, but the engine is still psychological, built around group tension, survival, and the way ordinary people behave when the rules suddenly change. Across both names, she keeps returning to power, secrecy, and the gap between public masks and private motives.

These days Deakin is based in West Yorkshire with her family, and her work now stretches beyond novels into speaking and podcasting. She met her husband while researching Lost, which feels very in character for a writer whose fiction is so tied to curiosity and real-world detail. Her books have been published in 14 countries, but the core appeal stays simple: smart suspense, strong hooks, and a deep interest in why people do what they do.