American · b. 1989
Rachel Gillig is an American author of gothic romantic fantasy, born September 22, 1989, and raised on the California coast. She studied at the University of California, Davis, switching from art history to literary theory and criticism, and worked as a preschool teacher and artist before writing full time. Her debut novel, One Dark Window (2022), introduced the cursed kingdom of Blunder and launched The Shepherd King duology, which she completed with Two Twisted Crowns (2023). Both books became bestsellers driven substantially by BookTok, pairing a slow-burn romance with a magic system built on sacrifice and twelve enchanted Providence Cards. Gillig has said she prefers writing duologies because she wants each pair of books to read as one long story with an intermission in the middle. Her fiction draws heavily on folklore and folk ballads, and her gothic, atmospheric style has been compared to fairy-tale retellings. She followed the Shepherd King books with a second duology, Stonewater Kingdom, beginning with The Knight and the Moth (2025). Gillig lives in California with her husband, son, and their poodle, Wally.