Joan Koster lives with her historian husband and a coon cat named Cleo in an 1860s farmhouse stacked to the ceiling with books. In a life full of adventures, she has scaled mountains, chased sheep, explored islands, illustrated books, and written novels of romance and intrigue.

All of which makes curling up on a Nova Scotia beach writing thrilling historical novels about forgotten women a true enjoyment. A multi-published, award-winning author of fiction and nonfiction in the fields of art, education, anthropology, history and romance, she is the author, under the penname, Zara West, of the romantic suspense series The Skin Quartet. Her short stories have appeared in several anthologies, and received awards from Women on Writing, Stone Thread Publishing, Tryst Literary Magazine, and Winning Writers. Her first historical fiction novel long-listed for the Mslexia Award.

She also the author of the top-selling Write for Success series, designed to help everyone write faster and better. She blogs at: Joan Koster Author, Zara West Romance, Zara’s Journal, and American Civil War Voices.