Long Bio

Natalie D. Richards writes page-turning Young Adult thrillers and Middle Grade adventure novels. She is the author of two New York Times Bestsellers, Five Total Strangers (2020) and Seven Dirty Secrets (2021), as well as nine additional novels. Natalie’s debut middle grade adventure, 15 Secrets to Survival (2023), was hailed as, “a teamwork oriented update of ‘Hatchet,’” by School Library Journal, “exciting and revelatory,” by Kirkus Reviews, and “a fun and fast paced read” by Publisher’s Weekly. Natalie’s latest release, 49 Miles Alone (2024), about two cousins hiking in the remote Utah wilderness, earned enthusiastic praise from Kirkus Reviews and Booklist.

Natalie won her very first writing contest when she was in the second grade with a short story about Barbara Frances Bizzlefishes (who would not dare do the dishes). These days she writes about some awesome girls, broody boys, and all things that are creepy and dark. She spent many years applying her writing abilities to amazingly boring business documents. Fortunately, she realized that she is much better at making things up, and has written for teens ever since.

When she isn’t shopping a manuscript or writing, she can most likely be found wading through the huge stacks of dog-eared paperback books that have taken over her bedroom.

As a writer, she tends to write by the seat of her pants without much of a clue as to where she is going with each scene, often with the entire book as a whole. Natalie finds this helps her maintain an authentic edge of suspense in all her work because she honestly has no idea just how or even if her characters will get out of whichever mess she has wrote them into.

Natalie currently lives in Ohio with her three children and (very) large dog, Wookie.