Laurell K. Hamilton is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series and the Merry Gentry series. She has also written A Terrible Fall of Angels, the first book in an exciting new series featuring Detective Zaniel Havelock in a world where angels and demons walk among us.

With more than forty novels published, Laurell continues to create groundbreaking fiction inspired by her lifelong love of monster movies, ghost stories, mythology, folklore, and things that go bump in the night. Her love of the macabre, books in general, animals, and nature led her to degrees in English and biology. She is a nonpracticing biologist but uses her science background to add an extra level of realism to her fiction.

She currently lives in St. Louis with her family, two spoiled Japanese chins, a house panther, and a house lion. In her free time, Laurell trains in Filipino martial arts with a specialization in bladework, and travels to scuba dive and bird-watch as often as she can.