Nicola Monaghan
Novelist
About
Nicola Monaghan is the author of the Sian Love mystery series including the critically acclaimed Dead Flowers, which was shortlisted for the Little, Brown UEA Crime Fiction award, and the follow up Wish You Were Here. Her debut novel The Killing Jar won a Betty Trask award, the Authors’ Club Best First Novel award and a Waverton Good Read award. She also writes psychological horror as Niki Valentine. Her novels can be broadly described as crime or thrillers but usually use elements and tropes from a number of genres. She has attended the Cúirt International Festival of Literature, been on the New Blood panel at Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival and even appeared on the pilot of the Alan Titchmarsh television show.
As well as the novels, Nicola writes for screen and has had several critically acclaimed short films made starring well-known actors with director Ash Morris and Council Child/Anderson Shelter productions. These include Margie’s Garden (starring Abigail Hamilton, Steven Arnold and George Newton) and Bare (starring Steven Arnold and Brendan Coyle.) She taught creative writing at university for sixteen years before leaving to pursue her own PhD studies and write a thriller about the experience.
Nicola originally studied maths at university and taught the subject for several years before taking a job in finance in the City of London. She has also worked for several software companies, in arts marketing and for an energy supplier. Coming from this unusual background for a novelist, she’s passionate about working with science students to improve their writing.