Thea Draycott spent eleven years as an archivist in a university special-collections department, which is a job that consists almost entirely of handling objects far older than you are and discovering that most historical catastrophes began as a badly worded agreement. She has a classics degree she was told would never be practical and a professional specialism in medieval contract documents, and she would like the record to show that both turned out to be extremely practical indeed.

Raised in Bath, England, by a Latin teacher and a solicitor – a combination she insists explains everything about her books – Thea grew up reading the Greek myths as family drama rather than scripture, and never lost the conviction that the gods are at their most interesting when they are bound by something. Her fiction is built on that: pantheons with functioning rules, divinity as an office rather than a mood, and heroines whose weapon is the ability to read a document properly.

Her Ninth Olympian novels drop one mortal woman into the politics of a court that has been eleven thrones for four centuries, and let her negotiate. Readers can expect gods who are ancient and genuinely other, slow-burn bargains that turn combustible, open-door heat that escalates with trust rather than proximity, Olympian court intrigue with teeth, and a guaranteed happily-ever-after at the end of every book.

Thea lives outside Bath with her partner, Row, an appallingly competent pub-quiz teammate; a grey cat named Asphodel who has never once come when called; and a flat full of the kind of reference books nobody should own in hardback. She still cannot walk past a museum case without checking whether the label is wrong.