Susanna Kearsley, born on January 17, 1966, is a distinguished New York Times best-selling Canadian novelist, celebrated for her works in historical fiction and mystery. Notably, she has also written thrillers under the pen name Emma Cole. Her literary prowess was acknowledged in 2014 when she received the Romance Writers of America's RITA Award for Best Paranormal Romance for The Firebird.

Kearsley is a former museum curator, a passion that reflects in her writing as she endeavors to restore the lost voices of real people to the page. This quest has led her to interweave romance and historical intrigue with modern adventure. Her books, which have been published in translation in more than 20 countries, have garnered her the Catherine Cookson Fiction Prize, RT Reviewers’ Choice Awards, a RITA Award, and National Readers’ Choice Awards. Her work has also been a finalist for the UK’s Romantic Novel of the Year and the Crime Writers of Canada's Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel.

A resident near Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Kearsley, also known as Emma Cole, initially used this pseudonym for her thriller Every Secret Thing, which was intended to kick-start a trilogy featuring her intricate storytelling.