Meet Lee

My favorite spot to write is in our family office. We've got a lot of books :)!

I spent two weeks studying writing at Oxford as part of my VCFA MFA program.

My family and I took a four-week road trip this past summer touring the U.S. National Parks.

One of our very favorite parks is Arches National Park, outside of Moab, Utah.

My kids, Penn (10) and Summer (7), conquering Sand Dune Arch.

Bodleian Library at Oxford is a writer’s dream. I’d love to set a mystery there one day!

My co-writer, Jennifer Thorne, and I, on a brainstorming walk, when I was lucky enough to visit her in the Cotswolds.

S'mores over a roaring campfire with my family = definition of comfort :)

My daughter and I, on horseback, exploring Grand Teton, another favorite park.

Lee Kelly is the author of City of Savages, a Publishers Weekly “Best of Spring 2015” pick and a VOYA Magazine “Perfect Ten” selection, A Criminal Magic, which was optioned and developed for a television series by Warner Bros., The Antiquity Affair, co-written with Jennifer Thorne (Summer 2023), With Regrets (Fall 2023) and The Starlets (forthcoming from Harper Muse, Fall 2024).

Her short fiction and essays have appeared in Gingerbread House, Orca, and Tor.com, among other publications, and she holds her MFA degree from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. An entertainment lawyer by trade, Lee has practiced law in Los Angeles and New York. She currently lives with her husband and two children in New Jersey, where you’ll find them engaged in one adventure or another.

Highlighted Press

Most Recent Book: With Regrets

With Regrets was featured on The Skimm, Shelf Awareness (Best Book of the Week), Book Riot (Best New Release), and more!

“This sharply observed survival drama--imagine that Liane Moriarty wrote The Stand--is urgent, biting, and surprisingly optimistic.” — Shelf Awareness

“Compulsively readable . . . An exciting premise combined with a cast of very relatable characters add up to a book that is impossible to put down.” — Jesse Q. Sutanto, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties and Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers

“Both terrifying and poignant.” – Christina Dalcher, Sunday Times bestselling author of Femlandia and Vox

Featured

Press

The Starlets

Press Roundup: The Starlets

Press

The Starlets

The Starlets press tour! Co-authors Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne talk about collaboration, creating a sense of place in historical fiction, and cat-and-mouse capers in podcasts, vlogs, interviews, and articles. Check out this media roundup!

Press

The Starlets