Mary Novik

Called “a magnificent novel of seventeenth-century London” by The Globe and Mail, Mary Novik’s debut novel Conceit was warmly received by book clubs and chosen as a Book of the Year by both Quill & Quire and The Globe and Mail. It was long-listed for the Scotiabank Giller and won The Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. Canada Reads named Conceit one of the Top 40 Essential Canadian Novels of the Decade.

Mary Novik was raised in a large family in Victoria, British Columbia, and has been passionate about books and travel all her life. Mary was inspired to write Conceit when she was visiting St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and discovered that John Donne’s effigy was the only monument that survived the Great Fire of 1666. That night, Mary had a dream in which his daughter Pegge braved the holocaust to rescue her father’s statue. Why? From that one question, Conceit unfolded dramatically.

Mary’s new novel Muse was inspired by the rich history of Avignon in the 14th century, when the popes lived there instead of in Rome. It was in Avignon that Francesco Petrarch met Laura, the married noblewoman he immortalized in his poems. But who was really his muse—Laura or the flesh-and-blood woman who bore his two children? Muse is the story of this second woman, Solange Le Blanc, who later became the mistress of Pope Clement VI.
Mary lives in Vancouver. Visit her at www.marynovik.com, or connect with her at Goodreads, Facebook, or Twitter.