Shona (S.G.) MacLean was born in Inverness and brought up in the Scottish Highlands where her parents were hoteliers. She has a PhD in History at the University of Aberdeen. She started writing fiction while bringing up her 4 children, and has published two series of historical crime fiction under the name S.G. MacLean. She has twice won the CWA Historical Dagger, and her standalone Jacobite novel, The Bookseller of Inverness, was Waterstones 2023 Scottish Book of the Year. She lives in the Highlands with her husband and their dog. Distinguishing from her historical crime fiction, she is now writing standalone historical fiction under her own name, Shona MacLean.