Julia Golding, born in 1969, is a multi-award-winning British novelist. She is best known for her Cat Royal series and The Companions Quartet. Writing under the pen names Joss Stirling and Eve Edwards, she has sold over a million and a half books worldwide. Her popular titles span various age categories, including The Diamond of Drury Lane for children, Finding Sky for young adults, and Don’t Trust Me for adults.

Julia's journey to authorship took a winding path through several careers. She grew up near Epping Forest and displayed an early affinity for storytelling. After studying English at Cambridge, she served as a diplomat in Poland with the Foreign Office, an experience that later enriched her writing.

Post-diplomacy, Julia pursued a doctorate in English Romantic Period literature at Oxford, subsequently joining Oxfam as a lobbyist on conflict issues. This blend of diplomacy, academia, and advocacy weaves through her literary work.

Julia's first novel, The Diamond of Drury Lane, was inspired by her studies and won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and the Nestlé Children’s Book Prize in 2006. Her work has been recognized in the US with the Green Earth Book Award for Secret of the Sirens and in Utah with the Beehive Book Award for Dragonfly.

Her writing as Stirling includes the shortlisted Finding Sky for the German Children’s Literature Award and Struck, which won the YA Romantic Novel and overall Romantic Novel of the Year in 2015.

Julia is the Director of the Oxford Centre for Fantasy and has held residencies, including at the Royal Institution in 2019. She also hosts a Jane Austen podcast and works as a screenwriter. She is represented by Caroline Walsh of David Higham Associates.