Julia Gray is a British author and singer-songwriter whose young adult novels have earned her a reputation for sharp, unsettling storytelling. Based in Oxfordshire, she studied Classics at University College London before taking a diploma in Children’s Literature and an MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, where she was awarded the Sophie Warne Fellowship.
Her debut novel, “The Otherlife”, was published by Andersen Press in 2016. It follows two boys at a high-pressure London school, one of whom is drawn into visions of the Norse gods, and it was longlisted for the Branford Boase Award. She followed it in 2018 with “Little Liar”, a psychological thriller about a teenager whose talent for lying spirals out of her control, which was shortlisted for Best YA Novel at the CrimeFest Awards.
In 2020 Gray turned to historical fiction with “I, Ada”, a novel about the teenage years of Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron who went on to write what is often described as the first computer algorithm. The book was shortlisted for the Young Quills Award for Historical Fiction, and Gray presented a podcast about women in maths and science to accompany it. All three of her solo novels were nominated for the Carnegie Medal.
Her most recent book, “Kitty and Mary”, was written with Imogen Russell Williams and published in 2026. A continuation of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”, it picks up the story of the two unmarried Bennet sisters around six months after the original novel ends.
Alongside her novels, Gray has been one of the lead writers at the personalised picture book publisher Wonderbly since 2016. She is also a musician: she recorded three albums with the trip-hop and jazz collective Second Person and has released solo records including “I Am Not The Night” and “Robber Bride”.
Standalone Books In Order of Publication
| The Otherlife | 2016 |
| Little Liar | 2018 |
| I, Ada | 2020 |
| Kitty and Mary (with Imogen Russell Williams) | 2026 |
You can buy Julia Gray’s books from Andersen Press.