Jill MacLean started as a writer of so-called formula fiction, but many years ago turned to poetry, its polar opposite; her collection was shortlisted for two awards, while her five literary novels for young readers have won four awards and received numerous nominations, four of them international. She’s now working on a novel for adults, set in the early years of the One Hundred Years War, in the shadow of plague.

She lives in Nova Scotia, has been a palliative care volunteer and a dog walker for two humane societies, and is a keen reader who loves libraries (they’re full of books and they’re free). Time with family and friends is of the essence. Gardening, music and solo canoeing are also high on her list: picture her paddling into the sunrise on a mist-wreathed lake (edit out the blackflies). She has a strong sense of adventure: she’s hiked the high Arctic tundra, driven the Dempster Highway, tramped lava fields in central Iceland, traversed very scary, unlit, one-way tunnels in the Faroes Islands and been much too close to a grizzly in the Mackenzie Mountains. Medieval peasants, war and plague? An adventure of a different kind. Add to this curiosity and a propensity for eavesdropping, along with a passion for vibrant characters and a well-told story, and you begin to understand what keeps her at her desk, day after day.

Jill needs an update here - a busy few years. Her first medieval novel, "The Arrows of Mercy," was published in 2023, and was a finalist for the Whistler Independent Book Awards sponsored by The Writers' Union of Canada. It received a stellar review in The Miramichi Reader and was one of their Best Books for 2023. The Historical Society highly recommended it.
Since then, she's written a standalone sequel, called "The Arrows of Fealty," which will be launched September 21, 2025. The advance reviews are excellent, and it received a 5-star review (based on the ARC) yesterday.