Tricia Levenseller is the New York Times-bestselling American author of YA fantasy novels, including the Daughter of the Pirate King trilogy, Warrior of the Wild, The Shadows Between Us, and the Bladesmith duology. She writes young adult high fantasies with heavy romantic subplots.
Tricia Levenseller grew up in Oregon. She received her degree in English Language and editing from Brigham Young University. She wrote her first young adult fantasy novel the summer between semesters in college.
Levenseller worked as a nanny for a couple of years after college to pay rent and then quit to write full-time. She was only 23 years old when she got her first book deal.
Levenseller wrote Daughter of the Pirate King, but her agent told her, “I don’t like pirates.” That’s when she realized it was time for new representation. So, she queried again and landed her current agent, “who is all about pirates.” The first book in the series came out in 2017.
Her next big thing was Warrior of the Wild (2019). The novel tells the story of Rasmira, the daughter of her village's leader, who has trained all her life to be a great warrior. But her sex and her position in the community produce jealous rivalries among the young men she trains with. They play a horrible trick on her that gets her cast out of her homeplace. Now, Rasmira must survive in the rough, barren, monster-filled wild. And the only way she can ever go home is if she kills her people's cruel, heartless god, Peruxolo.
“If there’s anything that anyone takes away from this book,” Levenseller said, “it is that everybody is worthy of love and being loved, and it is not something you have to earn. It is something that should just be given.”
Tricia Levenseller now lives in Utah.
Photo credit: tricialevenseller.com
