Karen has a first class honours in Early Modern Social & Cultural History and is the author of three works of non fiction. Two are collective biographies of men and women of her home county, the third a look at outrageous fashion from many sources: newspapers that reported on them:  governments that tried to legislate against and men who, after wives and sweethearts had removed the garments that had pulled, pummelled and bullied their figures into fashionable perfection questioned whether they should not be granted divorces as they no longer recognised to whom they were married!

She has been part of the Essex Book Festival many times and regularly lectures on the subjects of her books and other historical subjects.

“Karen Bowman is the writer’s equivalent of a magpie, her beady eye alert for the oddest of details and the weirdest of facts… ”  New York Times