Katherine Neville (author)


Katherine Neville is a NY Times, USA Today & #1 Internationally bestselling American author who writes adventure/quest novels. Her novels include The Eight, A Calculated Risk, The Magic Circle and The Fire, which is a sequel to The Eight.

Biography

Katherine Neville was born in the midwest and attended university in Colorado, later doing postgraduate studies in African literature. She then moved to New York City and began a career in the computer field working for IBM in transportation and energy.
In the 1970s Neville was an international data processing consultant to the Algerian government, and in the late 1970s she went to work at the Department of Energy's nuclear research site in Idaho. In between jobs and during school, she supported herself as a painter and a model. This experience led her to develop her own photography skills and eventually start a photography business in Colorado, which she ran for several years.
In 1980, she moved to San Francisco and became a vice president at Bank of America. After publication of her first book, she moved to Europe, living in Vienna, Austria, and northern Germany, with her spouse, the late neuroscientist, Dr. Karl Pribram. In the 1990s Neville and Pribram moved to Virginia and Washington, DC. Her restoration of renowned potter home and studio was featured in The Washington Post.

Works

Neville's novels have been compared with the works of Alexandre Dumas, Umberto Eco, Charles Dickens, and Steven Spielberg. Her books have been translated into forty languages and are in print in over 80 countries. Neville’s books have appeared on bestseller lists and received multiple awards and honors around the world.
YearNovelPrintEbookAudio
1988The EightRandom House / Ballantine
Open RoadRandom House Audio
1992A Calculated RiskRandom House / Ballantine
Open Road
1998Random House / Ballantine
Open RoadRandom House Audio / BDD
2008The FireRandom House / Ballantine
Open RoadRandom House Audio

Acclaim

The Eight garnered international acclaim upon its release and continues to be ranked as a top thriller novel. Publishers Weekly said, “Even readers with no interest in chess will be swept up into this astonishing fantasy-adventure… Neville has great fun rewriting history and making it all ring true. With two believable heroines, nonstop suspense, espionage, murder, and a puzzle that seems the key to the whole Western mystical tradition, this spellbinder soars above the level of first-rate escapist entertainment.” The Washington Post called The Eight “A feminist answer to Raiders of the Lost Ark." The Boston Herald lauded the novel as “The female counterpart to Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose… Impossible to put down.”
A Calculated Risk was selected as a NY Times Notable Book for 1992. Newgate Callendar of the NY Times Book Review said, “Never a dull moment, and Ms Neville makes it all the more plausible because of her intimate knowledge of how international banking works. She plots well and takes the reader through the intrigues and backbiting of immense corporations… churns up wave after wave of excitement."
Booklist called The Magic Circle "compelling" and noted that "fans of that emerging subgenre —– the millennial thriller —- will want to add this one to their reading list.” Beth Dora Reisberg of January Magazine termed The Magic Circle a "tour de force."
The Fire, Neville's sequel to The Eight, topped bestseller lists internationally and quickly became a NY Times Bestseller. In a 2008 review in The Independent of London, Barry Forshaw declared that The Fire was much better than The Da Vinci Code. The Chicago Sun-Times stated, "Katherine Neville’s follow up to The Eight, a cult classic that impressed many readers as a more intelligent and literary precursor to Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code... The Fire impresses as much for its literary aspects as it does for its action, puzzles and suspense... This is a book to be savored as it’s read, and admired for the beauty of its accomplishment.”
Neville’s books have been bestsellers in many countries, and appeared on many bestseller lists in United States, including: USA Today, NY Times, Publishers Weekly, Wall Street Journal, Indie List, Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, St Paul Pioneer Press, and Denver Post.

Awards and Honors