Gigi Griffis

Gigi Griffis is an American author of historical fiction, horror and suspense for adults and young readers. Her work is distinguished by feminist perspectives, morally complicated female protagonists and an interest in neglected episodes of European history. After spending almost a decade living semi-nomadically in different parts of Europe, she settled in Porto, Portugal. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages, and she has written both original novels and fiction connected with screen productions. Across her work, Griffis frequently combines detailed historical settings with mystery, folklore, political oppression and stories of women resisting the roles imposed upon them.

Her adult historical novel The Empress, written as a companion to the Netflix series, begins in 1853 and fictionalises the courtship of Elisabeth “Sisi” of Bavaria and Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria. The Lioness moves to fourteenth-century France and reimagines the life of Jeanne de Clisson, a noblewoman who became a pirate after King Philip VI executed her husband. Griffis’s young-adult historical horror novel We Are the Beasts draws upon the eighteenth-century mystery of the Beast of Gévaudan, following two girls who exploit rumours of the creature to help abused young women escape. The Wicked Unseen is set amid the American Satanic Panic of the 1990s, while And the Trees Stare Back combines folk horror with the realities of life in Soviet-occupied Estonia in 1989. These novels use supernatural or thriller elements to explore persecution, authoritarian power, gendered violence and solidarity among girls and women.