Emilia Hart

Emilia Hart is a British-Australian novelist.

Biography
Hart was born in Sydney and educated at Barker College. She studied law and English at the University of New South Wales and became a lawyer. She moved to London in her mid-20s. When she was 26, she suffered a stroke, and decided afterwards that she would try to realize her childhood ambition of writing a novel.

Hart began writing her debut novel, Weyward, while living in Cumbria, where the novel is set. While writing the novel, she compared the Pendle Witch Trials in 1612 and reports of increased violence against women in lockdown and noted, "the two seemed horribly linked."

Weyward was published in the UK in February 2023, and in March 2023 in the United States, where it became a New York Times bestseller. It was called an "entertaining read" by The Times of London. Kirkus Reviews said it was "thoughtful and at times harrowing." In the BBC's Between The Covers review show it was referred to as a "spellbinding debut novel." In May, The New York Times included the book on its summer roundup of historical fiction.

Awards and honours
Weyward won two GoodReads Choice Awards in December 2023 for Best Debut Novel and Best Historical Fiction, receiving 45,000 and 62,000 votes in each category respectively.