Kate Morton
"My books are about secrets and the way they haunt their keepers; time and its passage; the interweaving of the present and the past; the knots and tangles of family; history, mystery and memory."
Kate Morton is the award-winning, worldwide bestselling author of The Shifting Fog (published internationally as The House at Riverton), The Forgotten Garden, The Distant Hours, The Secret Keeper, The Lake House, and The Clockmaker's Daughter.
She is known in particular for her historical fiction, and she is also a writer we are proud to claim as one of our own as an Australian author. Kate’s books are published in 38 languages across 45 territories and have been #1 bestsellers worldwide.
Meet Kate Morton
Kate Morton was born in the Riverland in South Australia, and her family moved around a lot before eventually settling on Tamborine Mountain. She had an idyllic childhood there, playing with her two sisters and enjoying the beautiful scenery.
Even though Kate initially enrolled in law at university, she soon made the switch to the arts. She earned a Licentiate in Speech and Drama from London’s Trinity College, and started acting in community theatre productions. Eventually, she also earned both Honours and Masters degrees in English Literature.
In her own words, she “started writing because I wanted to recapture the joy of reading as a child. As soon as I learned that the black marks on white pages were doorways, and that it was within my power to go through them (and beyond the back of the wardrobe), I was hooked."
Kate is known for her work in historical fiction, and some of that arguably stems from her mother’s job as an antique dealer. Kate admits that it instilled a “fascination with objects from the past” in her, and introduced her to many second hand shops where she often found pre-loved books for her collections.
Today, Kate lives in London with her husband and three sons. She loves reading to her kids and their classmates, and sharing the love of stories with the next generation.
