Natalie Meg Evans (The Dress Thief) has been an art student, actor, PR copywriter, book-keeper and bartender. She is the author of three published novels which take as their starting point the turmoil of the late 1930s and World War Two and focus on the personal struggles of individuals caught up in these times. Though her writing occupies the commercial centre-ground, Natalie holds to the view that historical fiction can offer us a distant reflection of ourselves. Through history, we can view our current social crises from a clearer perspective. If that sounds overly earnest, each novel delves behind the scenes of a prestige industry: high fashion, millinery, wine making—rich arenas of human conflict!

Brought up in the UK, and presently living in rural Suffolk where she writes full time, Natalie was born in Zimbabwe, then Southern Rhodesia, to a mechanic father and a teacher mother. Her mother’s love of all things French made a deep impression, as did a spell in Paris at a formative age. Her first two books are set in that city.

The Dress Thief was shortlisted for a Romance Writers of America Rita© award in 2015 and won the UK’s Festival of Romance readers’ prize for ‘The best historical’. The Milliner’s Secret was shortlisted for ‘Best Historical novel’ in the UK’s Love Stories awards. She won the Harry Bowling Prize (2012) and gained first place in the USA’s Houston Emily awards for historical fiction. In 2012 she was a finalist for a Romance Writers of America Golden Heart©. She also picked up a nomination for the coveted Daphne du Maurier award. Natalie was long-listed for BBC Radio’s ‘Opening Lines’ short story call, and for the Mslexia ‘New Novel award.’ The Dress Thief was voted ‘Best Foreign Novel’ in the Greek Public Book awards. Find The Dress Thief here.

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