Alice Blanchard

{{short description|American author|bot=PearBOT 5}}{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2015}}{{Infobox author

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1959|02|28}}

| birth_place = Hyannis, Massachusetts, United States

| spouse = {{married|Doug Dowling|1993}}

}}

Alice Blanchard (born 1959) is an American suspense novelist. She won the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction for her book of stories The Stuntman's Daughter.

Early life and education

Blanchard was born February 28, 1959, in Hyannis, Massachusetts. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in film studies from Emerson College.{{Cite web |title=Blanchard, Alice 1959- |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/blanchard-alice-1959 |access-date=2025-02-08 |website=Encyclopedia.com}}

Career

Blanchard published her first book, a short story collection titled The Stuntman's Daughter: And Other Stories, with University of North Texas Press in 1996. The 12-story collection won the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction for that year.{{Cite web |date=1996-05-01 |title=The Stuntman's Daughter |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/alice-blanchard/the-stuntmans-daughter/ |access-date=2025-02-08 |website=Kirkus Reviews |archive-date=August 8, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200808174236/https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/alice-blanchard/the-stuntmans-daughter/ |url-status=live }}

Her first novel, Darkness Peering, was published by Bantam Books in 1999.{{Cite web |date=1999-08-02 |title=Darkness Peering by Alice Blanchard |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780553111538 |access-date=2025-02-08 |website=Publishers Weekly |archive-date=June 21, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240621040708/https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780553111538 |url-status=live }} It was named one of the New York Times' Notable Books, a Barnes & Noble Best Mystery, and a Book Sense Pick. The novel was published in nine countries, and film adaptation rights were sold to Propaganda Films. She has since published three additional standalone novels: The Breathtaker (2003),{{Cite web |date=2003-09-15 |title=The Breathtaker |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/alice-blanchard/the-breathtaker/ |access-date=2025-02-08 |website=Kirkus Reviews}} Life Sentences (2005),{{Cite web |date=July 1, 2005 |title=Life Sentences |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/alice-blanchard/life-sentences-3/ |access-date=2025-02-08 |website=Kirkus Reviews}} and A Breath After Drowning (2018).{{Cite web |date=2018-03-05 |title=A Breath After Drowning by Alice Blanchard |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781785656415 |access-date=2025-02-08 |website=Publishers Weekly |archive-date=June 21, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240621041652/https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781785656415 |url-status=live }} The Breathtaker was an official NBC Today Book Club selection in January 2004.{{Cite web |date=2004-01-14 |title='The Breathtaker' |url=https://www.today.com/news/breathtaker-wbna3948703?search=alice%20blanchard |access-date=2025-02-08 |website=Today |language=en}}

Blanchard also authored the Natalie Lockhart series, which consists of four novels: Trace of Evil (2019), The Wicked Hour (2020),{{Cite web |date=2020-09-15 |title=The Wicked Hour |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/alice-blanchard/the-wicked-hour/ |access-date=2025-02-08 |website=Kirkus Reviews}}{{Cite web |last=Cogdill |first=Oline H. |date=2020-12-29 |title=The Wicked Hour |url=https://shelf-awareness.com/readers-issue.html?issue=982#m17192 |access-date=2025-02-08 |website=Shelf Awareness |archive-date=February 1, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250201102436/https://shelf-awareness.com/readers-issue.html?issue=982#m17192 |url-status=live }} The Witching Tree (2021),{{Cite web |date=2021-10-05 |title=The Witching Tree: A Natalie Lockhart Novel by Alice Blanchard |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781250783042 |access-date=2025-02-08 |website=Publishers Weekly |archive-date=March 26, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326034852/https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781250783042 |url-status=live }} and The Shadow Girls (2023).{{Cite web |date=April 24, 2023 |title=The Shadow Girls |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/alice-blanchard/the-shadow-girls/ |access-date=2025-02-08 |website=Kirkus Reviews}} Trace of Evil follows a female rookie detective investigating the murder of a popular high school teacher who has eerie ties to the murder of a teenage girl 20 years ago.{{Cite web |date=2019-09-12 |title=Trace of Evil |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/alice-blanchard/trace-of-evil/ |access-date=2025-02-08 |website=Kirkus Reviews |archive-date=April 8, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200408051028/https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/alice-blanchard/trace-of-evil/ |url-status=live }} The series includes witch accusation and obsession with black magic deep in the woods of the fictional suburban community of Burning Lake, New York.

Awards and honors

Blanchard has received a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, a New Letters Literary Award, and a Centrum Artists in Residence Fellowship.{{Cn|date=February 2025}}

class="wikitable"

|+Awards for Blanchard's writing

!Year

!Work

!Award

!Result

!{{Ref heading}}

1989

|"Corporation Beach"

|New Letters Literary Award for Fiction

|Winner