JENNET: now she wants the children (Ghosts of Thores-Cross #3) is now available!
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Karen's books are available in hardback, paperback and large print editions, audio format and for Kindle. Available in most good bookstores, including Blackwell's and Waterstones, or buy direct from the author here.

  • Karen Perkins
  • The Yorkshire Ghost Stories
  • The Valkyrie Series
  • LionheART
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Karen Perkins - Photo by John Rice: poet & children's author
​Karen Perkins is the author of seven fiction titles: the Yorkshire Ghost Stories and the Valkyrie Series of Caribbean pirate adventures. All of her fiction has appeared at the top of bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic, including the top 25 in the UK Kindle Store in 2018.

Her first Yorkshire Ghost Story – THE HAUNTING OF THORES-CROSS – won the Silver Medal for European Fiction in the prestigious 2015 Independent Publisher Book Awards in New York, whilst her Valkyrie novel, DEAD RECKONING, was long-listed in the 2011 MSLEXIA novel competition.
Originally a financial advisor, a sailing injury left Karen with a chronic pain condition which she has been battling for over twenty years (although she did take the European ladies title despite the injury!). Writing has given her a new lease of – and purpose to – life, and she is currently working on Jennet, a sequel to The Haunting of Thores-Cross and Cursed, and which will be followed by a return to Haworth and The Rookery.
 
When not writing, she helps other authors prepare their books for publishing and has edited over 150 titles, including the 2017 Kindle UK Storyteller Award winner, The Relic Hunters by David Leadbeater, and has also published a series of publishing guides to help aspiring authors realise their dreams.


​​The Yorkshire Ghost Stories

Parliament of Rooks: Haunting Brontë Country

Knight of Betrayal: A Medieval Haunting

The Haunting of Thores-Cross: A Yorkshire Ghost Story

Cursed: A Ghosts of Thores-Cross Short Story​

Coming Soon: JENNET: now she wants the children

​Likened by independent reviewers to the Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allen Poe, Barbara Erskine and Bernard Cornwell, Karen Perkins' novels are filled with unflinching honesty and an acute understanding of human nature. In the Yorkshire Ghost Stories, she explores not only the depths of humanity, but the human motivation behind the actions and pain people inflict upon each other, as well as the repercussions of these actions not only in the short term, but also the later generations who live with the implications of the past. 
 
Karen's second Yorkshire Ghosts novel – Knight of Betrayal – opens with the assassination of the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1170, then follows the knights responsible when they flee north to Knaresborough Castle. As King Henry II and the whole of Christendom turn against them, they begin to come to terms with the enormity of what they have done, yet they cannot rest and return to Knaresborough 850 years later.
 
Parliament of Rooks is set in both modern-day and Victorian Haworth – the West Yorkshire home of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. Parliament of Rooks delves into the era of ‘The Yorkshire Slavery’, and contrasts the beautiful, inspiring village of Haworth today with the slum – or rookery – it was during the industrial revolution: rife with disease, heartache, poverty, and employing child slavery in the mills.​​​ 

Karen's latest novel concludes the story of Jennet, which started in The Haunting of Thores-Cross and Cursed. As the water level at Thruscross Reservoir drops once again, Jennet wakes. Having failed her children in The Haunting of Thores-Cross, Jennet has a new strategy – and the strength to return. Find out more on the Yorkshire Ghost Stories page.


The Valkyrie Series
- Caribbean Pirate Adventures -

Look Sharpe!
Ill Wind
​Dead Reckoning
​Where Away

Karen is fascinated by history and not only that of her native Yorkshire. In the Valkyrie Series, she explores why so many people from a multitude of European nations and religions flocked to the Caribbean and Americas in the search for freedom – yet enslaved two continents in the process. More took to the sea in their search for freedom, creating one of the most violent, ruthless, yet democratic societies in history – aboard pirate ships.​


Free Ebook Offer:
Where Away: A Valkyrie Short Story

 See the Valkyrie page for more details

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Magdalena Ortega is bored. She hates her life in Porto Belo – a town that comes alive every year with the arrival of the Spanish Treasure Fleet, then dies once more until the next visit. The thought of marrying, raising children, and spending the rest of her life here terrifies Magdalena and she is determined to escape.

Can she sneak aboard a galleon of the treasure fleet to stowaway?
Or will a pirate raid prove to be her undoing?
 LionheART Publishing House

The LionheART Guides for Formatting (Paperback, Kindle and ePub)
The LionheART Guide for Editing Fiction: UK & US Editions

Karen is also the proprietor of LionheART Publishing House. Established to help and support Indie authors with the practical side of publishing their books, including editing, formatting and professional cover design, Karen and her team have helped over three hundred books come to publication in the past four years, many of them bestsellers in a number of genres. As a further resource for independent authors, Karen has compiled her expertise and experience into publishing guides for editing and formatting your manuscripts.
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Karen Perkins being interviewed by Alistair MacDonald at the Society of Authors - Photo by John Rice
www.blackwells.co.uk
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Karen is proud to be a member of Historical Fiction Authors Co-operative - an international group of authors who first teamed up in 2010 to offer readers a selection of high-quality historical fiction e-books. HFAC membership is by invitation only, assuring the quality of the books featured on the site.
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Thores-Cross - Winner 2015 IPPY Silver Medal for European Fiction
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LionheART Publishing House - www.lionheartgalleries.co.uk