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Tess once had a simple life until her compulsion to write made-up stories complicated everything. She’s now an award winning and best selling author of contemporary fiction. Her novels have been published across North America and sold into Europe for translation.
The Venice Hotel, became an instant Top 10 Australian best seller in its debut week in September 2024. It was also released in Europe with Penguin Random House Germany after a hotly contested bidding war at London Book Fair. The Venice Hotel was shortlisted in the 2025 Australian Book Industry Book Awards (ABIAs) for General Fiction Book of the Year and was voted #9 in the 2025 Better Reading Top 100 books. Tess's latest novel, The Cairo Bridal Shop was released on September 1 2026 with Penguin Random House Australia and also became an instant Top 10 best seller, beating the sales record of The Venice Hotel. Tess also works as a physiotherapist in private practice and she shares a clinic and a home on the stunning Western Australian coast with her lovely and long-suffering husband. She’s a mother of two brilliant grown-up children and one grumpy grown-up cat. She’s obsessed with her Little Red Street Library and her veggie patch. In 2024, Tess founded Perth’s Festival of Fiction , creating the largest literary festival in Western Australia. She was the creative director of the festival for three years until 2026. Tess’s favourite thing to do is to curl up with a good book and a cup of tea, ignore the book, forget the tea and doom scroll social media instead. If you'd like to learn more about Tess's life story and how it influenced her storytelling, you can listen to her ABC Conversations podcast with Sarah Kanowski here |