American · b. 1987
V.E. Schwab (also Victoria Schwab for YA) writes fantasy with teeth. Born in 1987 in Alabama, she studied art history and moved to Nashville, then Liverpool, before settling in Edinburgh. Her novels span dimensions: Vicious (2013) reimagined superhero origins as a story about obsession and revenge; A Darker Shade of Magic (2015) built multiple Londons with different relationships to magic. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020) became her breakout—a three-hundred-year love story that spent over a year on bestseller lists. Schwab publishes prodigiously across age categories, but her best work shares a sensibility: magic has costs, villains make sense, and immortality is a curse that looks like a gift. She writes with a goth sensibility and a commercial instinct, making her one of fantasy's most successful crossover voices.