Heather Salter-Purves

Heather Salter-Purves is a British-born author who has transplanted her love of dark, lush storytelling to the sweltering heat of Western Australia. A devotee of gothic macabre writing and twisted fairy tales, she crafts stories that help readers navigate darkness and find connection in the shadows.

Heather's fascination with dark magical worlds began in childhood, listening to Discworld audiobooks with her father—a foundation that shaped her belief in stories as survival tools through difficult times. She draws inspiration from mythology reimagining and the kind of beautifully twisted narratives that bloom in unexpected places.

With The Daffodil Queen, the first book in her Twisted Garden Saga, Heather found her true voice as a sapphic fantasy and folklore author. This sapphic retelling of Hades and Persephone, woven through with Welsh mythology, marked the direction she intends to take her career—exploring queer reimagining of myth and legend where women love women amid gothic landscapes and magical darkness. Shadows Beyond the Gates continues this journey, cementing her commitment to sapphic fantasy rooted in folklore and the beautifully macabre.

When not wrangling words or her headstrong, defiant daughter, Heather can be found supported by her wife Lee-Anne, covered by her rescued staffy-cross Jersey, and supervised by Mahogany, the world's grumpiest cat. She writes to help people bloom in the darkness, creating spaces where readers can lose themselves in the kind of stories that make survival not just possible, but magical.