About Kristin Beck

Welcome! Thanks so much for visiting my website!

Hailing from the Pacific Northwest, I often write to the sound of drumming rain and percolating coffee, and I wake up every day excited to do so. My books center on overlooked women in history who led courageous, often riveting lives.

Growing up, I loved listening to my grandmother’s stories of her experiences during World War II. Shortly after graduating from nursing school, my grandmother enlisted with the Canadian army and shipped to Europe to work in frontline hospitals. She cared for patients in canvas tents strung across muddy fields, helped transform bombed-out buildings into clearing stations, and eventually fell in love with my grandfather, who was an American soldier. When they returned to North America, my grandparents settled down, raised children, and assumed quiet lives. That’s the part that compels me: to most people, my grandmother appeared to be a typical wife and mother, yet she concealed an extraordinary, unexpected past.

My grandmother’s stories motivated me to look for others like them. My first novel, COURAGE, MY LOVE (Berkley/Penguin Random House) explores the similarly unsung role of women in the Italian Resistance during World War II. These women were, like my grandmother, ordinary people living through unthinkable events, who chose bravery in the face of danger. They provide a powerful example for how we might navigate our own lives in uncertain times, and I’m continually inspired by them.

My forthcoming novel, THE WINTER ORPHANS, (Berkley/Penguin Random House) is also a tale of tremendous courage, shown both by women volunteers and the refugee children they cared for during World War II in southern France. The heroes of this novel are based on real people, and it was a true privilege to explore their remarkable story.

Prior to writing full time, I was a high school English teacher, with a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Washington and a Master’s in Teaching from Western Washington University. I was fortunate to live in Italy twice, once as a college student and later as a teacher. These days, when I’m not writing or diving down research rabbit holes, I love to garden, hike, and read. I can often be found buying far too many books at local bookstores, drinking far too much coffee, and getting lost in the Pacific Northwest woods and mountains with my husband and children.