Tracy Rees Books in Order

If you want Victorian family mysteries: Amy Snow → The Two Lives of Florence Grace → The Rose Garden
If you enjoy dual timeline seaside dramas: The Hourglass
If you like sweeping social history: The House at Silvermoor → Darling Blue / The Love Note
If you prefer cosy village fiction: The Little Book of Secrets → The Little Christmas House
If you are looking for a feel good seaside series: The Little House by the Sea

Tracy Rees was born and raised in Swansea in South Wales, a coastal city where books, the sea and daydreaming kept her company. As a child she scribbled stories for fun, including an early adventure about a princess that never quite reached its ending, but the idea of being an author never really left.

At university she studied Modern and Medieval Languages at Jesus College, Cambridge. Surrounded by libraries and old stone, she discovered how much she loved exploring different voices, eras and cultures on the page. After graduating she moved to London and spent several years working in medical publishing.

Those years in publishing were busy and practical, full of deadlines and detail. Yet even while she was commissioning and editing nonfiction, part of her was quietly storing away ideas for her own fiction. Eventually her curiosity about people took over and she went back to study, this time for a psychology degree.

Rees then trained in humanistic counselling and worked with people living with cancer and with their families. Sitting in small rooms listening to big stories changed how she saw the world. It also shaped the way she writes about grief, hope and the tiny turning points that can alter a life.

Her long held wish to tell stories found its moment when she entered a national competition for an unpublished novel. The manuscript became Amy Snow, a Victorian tale about an abandoned baby, a fierce young heiress and a trail of coded letters that sends its heroine across England. The book won the Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller competition and a publishing contract that helped launch her career, as well as the Love Stories Best Historical Read award.

Further historical novels followed. In The Two Lives of Florence Grace, an orphan from the wild Cornish moors is thrust into the glitter and danger of a wealthy London family. The Hourglass links a contemporary woman in crisis with a girl spending sunlit summers in Tenby, while The House at Silvermoor and The Rose Garden explore class, industry and women's choices at the turn of the twentieth century and in late Victorian London.

Alongside these, Rees has built a second strand of contemporary fiction that keeps one foot firmly in the present. Stories set in villages like Hopley and the seaside community of Pennystrand, including The Little Book of Secrets, The Little Christmas House and The Little House by the Sea, bring together cosy settings, warm humour and characters who are trying to rebuild their lives.

Across all her books she returns to certain themes: belonging, friendship, the pull of home and the quiet strength of women facing change. Her background in counselling gives her a steady interest in how people behave under pressure and how they grow.

Rees now divides her time between the Gower Peninsula in South Wales and London, where her partner lives. When she is not writing she enjoys yoga, walking, dancing and spending time with animals, from once caring for a three legged hamster to riding a golden palomino pony. She also mentors aspiring writers, happy to pass on some of the encouragement that helped her finish that first, life changing novel.