Flora Johnston is a writer from Edinburgh telling stories from Scotland and beyond.

She is currently  immersed in a series of four novels exploring social and political change, women’s lives and the impact of war in the first half of the twentieth century.

The series began with The Paris Peacemakers, which tells the story of three Scots and their struggle to rebuild their lives after the trauma of the First World War. It takes place against the backdrop of negotiations for the Treaty of Versailles, as international politicians attempt to rebuild the world they have shattered. This was followed by The Endeavour of Elsie Mackay, which picks up the lives of the same family ten years later in 1928, and also tells the story of pioneering Scottish aviator Elsie Mackay and her dream of becoming the first woman to fly the Atlantic.

The third novel in the series, The Berlin Passport Office, will be published in November 2026 and tells a little known but important story of daring, intrigue and integrity in Berlin in 1938.

Flora’s debut novel What You Call Free was published in March 2021, and told the story of two real women and their struggle for freedom in a harsh and divided society.

Flora spent many years researching and telling Scotland’s stories in exhibitions, books and digital media, and is delighted now to be doing this in the way she loves most, through fiction. Her love of Scottish History began when studying the subject at St Andrews University, and has included working at the National Museum of Scotland and a career in heritage interpretation. Her non-fiction publications include War Classics: the remarkable memoir of Scottish scholar Christina Keith on the Western Front (The History Press) and Faith in a Crisis (Islands Book Trust).

I write crime fiction set in the Dutch Golden Age featuring a reluctant detective who is a lecturer in moral philosophy at the University of Leiden. (I also have a series set in Prague in the near present day.)

The lure of the 17th century to me is that it is a time that begins to approximate to our own.  The language is not that different, there is a definite urban class and many of the structures that we know now – universities and types of business – have come into being. I will allow that reading 17th century Dutch handwriting is not always straightforward, but I had 38 years of training as a pharmacist reading doctors’ prescriptions.

The Dutch setting appealed because the United Provinces had a turbulent relationship with Great Britain then, but also because it is fascinating to see how a small country went in just over a century from being an occupied land to the economic powerhouse of Europe – a transformation that was not without its own problems as Amsterdam grew sevenfold in 120 years with its attendant pressure on land and opportunities for corruption.

I incorporate real historical figures in some of my stories but I hope I deal with them respectfully. I am very conscious that they have no opportunity to reply, but fortunately there are plenty of people with shady reputations and questionable habits so that I do not have to concoct much.

I was a journalist for over thirty years, chiefly for The Sunday Times, interviewing the great (and not always good) of the entertainment world. Before that I was the US Editor of Empire magazine, based in the States, and have contributed to an array of publications, inc. The Guardian, Elle, The Telegraph, Marie Claire, Radio Times, The Word, Entertainment Weekly, as well as assorted broadcast work for BBC1, C4, Five Live, Talksport.
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I’m the author of six books, the first three non-fiction — the film biography, Tarantino (Applause, 1995); the football history, Back Home: England and the 1970 World Cup (Orion, 2001), which The Times called “Truly outstanding” and the WW2 survival story, Dead Reckoning: The Dunedin Star Disaster (Orion, 2005), which was nominated for the Mountbatten Maritime Prize.

I then penned the Amazon/Kindle No.1 bestselling historical thriller No Ordinary Killing (Canelo, 2018) and follow-ups The Cold North Sea (2018) and Hell Gate (2020), which continue the pre-WW1 adventures of military intelligence sleuth, Captain Ingo Finch. The latter just came out in digital form (“Riveting and beautifully written,” Alex Gerlis). The series paperbacks and audio follow in 2021.

I have also written for film and have several screenwriting projects in various stages of development.