Karen grew up in Rochester, Kent. She left school at sixteen but returned to education in her mid-twenties, reading English Literature at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. The River Within, her debut novel, was published in the UK, USA and Canada by Europa Editions in 2020, and was called 'a supremely accomplished first work' by the Minneapolis Star Tribune. An early version of the novel won a Northern Writers’ Award in 2017. Her second novel, Fifteen Wild Decembers - a fictional reimagining of the life of Emily Brontë (Europa Editions, 2023) was shortlisted for the inaugural Nero Book Award for Fiction, and named a Sunday Times Best Historical Fiction Book for 2023. Karen's novels have since been translated into Italian and Ukrainian, amongst other languages. She lives with her family in York.
