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Nancy Bilyeau

Nancy Bilyeau

Nancy Bilyeau has worked on the staffs of InStyle, DuJour, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and Good Housekeeping. She is currently a regular contributor to Town & Country and Mystery Scene Magazine and the deputy editor of the nonprofit Center on Media, Crime and Justice. A native of the Midwest, she earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan. Her latest novel ,THE BLUE, set in the 18th century competitive world of producing art and porcelain, was the No. 1 Bestseller in the Historical Thriller category on amazon for one week and received an "Editors Selection" from Historical Novel Review. THE CROWN, her first novel and an Oprah pick, was published in 2012. THE CHALICE, followed in 2013, and the third in the trilogy, THE TAPESTRY, was published by Touchstone in 2015. Some earlier milestones: In 1661, Nancy's ancestor, Pierre Billiou, emigrated from France to what was then New Amsterdam when he and his family sailed on the St. Jean de Baptiste to escape persecution for their Protestant beliefs. Pierre built the first stone house on Staten Island and is considered the borough's founder. His little white house is on the national register of historic homes and is still standing to this day. Nancy drew on her Huguenot background to write THE BLUE.

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Nancy Bilyeau

Fiction

A Poet’s Secrets Lay Groundwork for Gothic Mystery

The Lost History of Dreams (Atria Books) may be Kris Waldherr’s debut novel, but this tense, atmospheric and sensual Gothic mystery has been influenced by both her earlier writing and her work as an illustrator and designer. The novel begins in Victorian-era London when historian-turned-post-mortem photographer Robert Highstead receives a…
Nancy Bilyeau
April 8, 2019
Thrillers

ITW Spotlight: Exploring the Eerie Lake Superior

Sometimes, as readers, we don’t know what we’ve been longing for until after it arrives. For instance, the eerie pleasures of a suspenseful, atmospheric novel set on Lake Superior become evident when we wrap ourselves around a sentence such as, “No one who was alive when her body floated onto…
Nancy Bilyeau
November 13, 2018
Fiction

Notes and Texts From Bram Stoker Inspire “Dracula” Prequel

This story appears through BookTrib’s partnership with the International Thriller Writers. It first appeared in The Big Thrill.  While it may seem that the vampire novel has been drained of every conceivable drop of blood, the truth is, the Undead can rise and walk the earth, becoming more Undead than ever before—in…
Nancy Bilyeau
October 3, 2018
Nonfiction

Discovery of the “Real” Lolita from the Classic

This story appears through BookTrib’s partnership with the International Thriller Writers. It first appeared in The Big Thrill.  When discussing a novel, many an author will be only too happy to cite the real person who inspires a character or the news story that sparks the idea for a plotline. But Vladimir…
Nancy Bilyeau
September 11, 2018

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