SJ Parris Books in Order

If you want the full Giordano Bruno saga: Heresy → Prophecy → Sacrilege → Treachery.
If you enjoy political and court intrigue: Prophecy → Conspiracy → Execution.
If you prefer a shorter introduction to Bruno: The Secret Dead → The Dead of Winter: Three Giordano Bruno Novellas.
If you like modern gothic suspense: While You Sleep → Storm.
If you want Stephanie Merritt's early contemporary fiction: Gaveston → Real.

S. J. Parris is the pen name of British writer and critic Stephanie Merritt, whose career has moved from newspaper deadlines to immersive historical thrillers. Under both names she writes about people who question authority, whether that means a Renaissance heretic or a modern woman on the edge.

Merritt was born in Surrey in 1974 and studied English at Queens' College, Cambridge. While she was still a student she began reviewing books, learning how to explain big ideas in clear, everyday language. That habit of looking closely at what makes a story work never really left her.

After graduating she joined the staff of the Observer and, by her mid twenties, was its deputy literary editor. Alongside editing reviews she wrote features across the paper and for other outlets, covering everything from new fiction to comedy and theatre. Years of talking to writers and watching how publishing works gave her a practical sense of how to build a book that keeps readers turning pages.

Her first novel, Gaveston, appeared in 2002 and won a Betty Trask Award for debut fiction. A contemporary reimagining of the story of Piers Gaveston, it explores power, desire and loyalty inside a modern university and media world. She followed it with Real, about a fading actor and a young playwright whose affair blurs the line between performance and real life, which she later adapted for the screen.

In 2008 she published The Devil Within, a candid memoir about living with clinical depression and trying to keep a career and relationships going at the same time. The book set out to put words to experiences many readers recognised but rarely saw described so plainly. It was shortlisted for a major mental health prize and has become a touchstone for people interested in the links between illness and creativity.

A long standing love of Tudor history and crime fiction finally came together in her Giordano Bruno series, written as S. J. Parris. Starting with Heresy in 2010, the books follow the real life Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno, recast as a heretic, spy and occasional detective in the service of Elizabeth I's spymaster. Later novels including Prophecy, Sacrilege, Treachery, Conspiracy, Execution and Alchemy, along with the novella collection The Dead of Winter, send him from Oxford colleges to royal palaces, the streets of Paris and the alchemists' laboratories of Prague.

Across those stories she mixes court intrigue, murder investigations and debates about faith, science and free thought. Readers often come for the twisty plots and stay for Bruno himself, an outsider who is clever, stubborn and sometimes his own worst enemy. Underneath the chases and conspiracies runs a quieter question about how to live honestly in a world that punishes doubt.

Merritt has never left criticism behind. She continues to review books and interview writers, appears regularly on BBC radio cultural programmes and is a familiar face at festivals such as Hay and Edinburgh. She has also served as a judge for major prizes, including the Costa Book Awards and the Orange New Writing Prize, bringing the same curiosity to other people's work that she brings to her own.

She lives in Surrey with her son, and has been known to celebrate finishing a book by walking clear across England. That mix of stamina, curiosity and dry humour runs through the novels gathered on this page.