Author of Elizabeth is Missing

Winner of the Costa First Novel Award

Emma Healey is the author of Elizabeth is Missing (2014), Whistle in the Dark (2018), and Sweat (2025).

More about the author
Elizabeth is Missing Elizabeth is Missing
Whistle in the Dark Whistle in the Dark
Sweat Sweat

Books

Thought-provoking literature

Emma Healey’s debut novel, Elizabeth is Missing, tackled dementia through the prism of a missing persons mystery. It sold over a million copies worldwide, won the Costa First Novel Award, and was made into a BBC film starring Glenda Jackson (who won a BAFTA and an International Emmy for her portrayal of Maud).

Emma's second novel Whistle in the Dark, explores the effect teenage depression has on a whole family, especially when the depressed teenager may be keeping a terrible secret.

Sweat follows a fitness fanatic whose sense of control is tested when her coercive ex-boyfriend suddenly reappears.

Buy Sweat
Elizabeth is Missing Elizabeth is Missing
Whistle in the Dark Whistle in the Dark
Sweat Sweat

Next Event

Guildford Book Festival Spring Readers' Day, Sunday 27 April 2025 10.30 - 4.30pm

Spring Readers’ Day is a regular, and extremely popular feature of the Guildford Book Festival and this spring it will be bringing the very best summer reads to West Horsley Place.

Spend the day in the company of some of Britain's best-loved authors as they share their stories, experiences, inspirations and latest projects.

More Events

About Emma

Emma Healey grew up in London and completed her first degree in bookbinding. She then worked in libraries, bookshops, art galleries, and universities, before studying for the MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. She lives in Norwich with her husband, daughter and cat.

Media
Gym provides dark inspiration for writer's new novel about personal trainer. ITV NewsPodcast: Book Off! Joe HaddowTake Four Books BBC Radio 4‘I bought into hypnobirthing. There’s language of: This is what women have done for millennia. Then the minute I went into labour, it was: “What the f**k was I thinking?” – Author Emma Healey Irish IndependentNovelist Emma Healey: ‘There’s an idea that painting all the roofs in the world white would reduce the global temperature’ Irish TimesMy favourite Norfolk places, by bestselling novelist Emma Healey Muddy StilettosThe Arts Mix BBC Radio ScotlandHow close is too close to your personal trainer? The Sunday TimesEmma Healey’s Top 5 Books on Toxic Relationships Women's PrizeInterview: ‘I knew I was overexercising and not eating enough’: novelist Emma Healey on the dark side of self-control The GuardianAt Home with Emma Healey Sowerbys At Home Magazine, Winter 2024Hutchinson Heinemann signs ‘pulse-quickening’ novel by award-winning Healey The BooksellerReview: The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright Irish IndependentPodcast: The Failing Writers The Failing Writers PodcastReview: Learned By Heart by Emma Donoghue Irish IndependentReview: Service by Sarah Gilmartin Irish IndependentReview: A Little Unsteadily into Light Irish IndependentMade in Clapham Junction The GuardianEmotionally connected to character Irish TimesLabours of love: Emma Healey, the bestselling author of Elizabeth Is Missing, on her struggle to become a mother Sunday TimesReview: Paradise Lodge by Nina Stibbe The GuardianBy 16, I had already made several plans to end my life The Sunday TimesThe voices in my desk drawer The Sunday TimesReview: The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon The GuardianMy hero: Dorothea Tanning by Emma Healey The GuardianClever Polly and the Stupid Wolf: a feminist Little Red Riding Hood The Guardian