Clare Whitfield

Clare Whitfield was born in Morden, Surrey, the fourth child to ex-Armed Forces parents. After a long career in buying, she returned to her passion for writing and books, studying an MA in Creative and Critical writing at the University of Winchester. She currently lives in Hampshire.

Her debut, People of Abandoned Character, published in 2020, won the Goldsboro Glass Bell 2021 Award and was shortlisted for the HWA Crime Debut 2021. Her second novel, The Gone and the Forgotten, was published in 2022. Clare’s third novel, Poor Girls, was published in November 2024 and shorted listed for the CWA Historical Crime Dagger 2025. In 2025 Clare was the judge for the W&A Working Class Writers’ Prize.