Award-winning author Anna Mazzola is mighty busy at the moment. Her new crime novel Notes On A Drowning has just been published under the pseudonym Anna Sharpe, she’s already working on Lie for Your Life, and is now preparing to descend on Oxford to take part in St Hilda’s Crime Fiction Weekend, which starts tonight. https://oxinabox.co.uk/people-have-a-voracious-appetite-for-crime-fiction-what-and-who-to-expect-at-st-hildas-upcoming-2025-crime-fiction-weekend-detecting-the-gothic/
Excited to be coming back to Oxford, having studied English at Pembroke, it’s her reputation as the ‘Queen of Darkness’ that prompted St Hilda’s Crime Weekend to invite her to speak on the year’s theme Detecting the Gothic – something Anna is relishing.
Enormously competent, multi-faceted, gifted and friendly, Anna is an award-winning historical crime fiction priestess and human rights lawyer with a busy family. “I have ADHD so can juggle lots of things at the same time.” she laughs. “Besides, we all manage don’t we?”
Which does beg the question – why sideline a successful legal career to become an author? “I have to write or I’d go bananas,” she says, “but I use my experiences on both sides of the fence in my books, both in my historical/gothic novels and my new contemporary crime fiction.
“Besides it’s good to have lots of irons in the fire. “I love a challenge, enjoy pushing myself and can put my legal training to good use at the same time while doing something a bit different.”
To put it into perspective, Anna has won the likes of the CWA Gold Dagger Crime Novel of the Year 2025 for THE BOOK OF SECRETS, her debut novel THE UNSEEING won an Edgar Allan Poe award, THE HOUSE OF WHISPERS a Fingerprint Award for Best Historical Crime, THE CLOCKWORK GIRL, was shortlisted for two CWA Dagger awards, a Fingerprint Award, and nominated for the Dublin Literary award.
So what was it like to win such a renowned and respected award? “When they read my name out I couldn’t believe it. I was like a rabbit stuck in the headlights. I’m so grateful. It made a real difference, not only to my book sales, but to my confidence,” she says.
And yet despite this success, Anna has still changed tack and branched into modern crime fiction. “Once you start writing in a set genre like historical crime, publishers expect the same again, and so it continues. But the 21st century is just as interesting and I think I had a lot of anger about how the criminal justice system fails woman.
“So I got into it really quickly, and in many ways it’s easier than having to do all the historical research on say 18th century France and then script it in the language of the day.”
The resulting novel Notes On A Drowning begins when a body is found in the Thames. Police discount the death as accidental, so legal aid lawyer Alex begins to uncover the real story – a series of cover-ups, corruption and serious abuse of power.
Next up is Lie For Your Life, which Anna is currently editing (due to be released in 2026), a courtroom thriller about a serial killer and a conflicted barrister. “I’m obsessed with how evil can often be there in plain sight,” Anna explains.
And yet it’s always the stories that grab Anna initially. Take her first book The Unseeing – the story of Sarah Gale; a seamstress and mother sentenced to hang for her role in the murder of Hannah Brown on the eve of her wedding in 1837. “I became completely fascinated by her,” Anna tells me. “She said almost nothing in court. She had a four year old child. What was going on in her head? What happened?”
No wonder publishers began a bidding war for the rights to her first two novels. “I was so delighted to get a book deal. It made me feel more confident about being a writer. So when I got my initial publishing deal, it was massive because we sold the TV rights and it got picked up by the US. It was so exciting.”
For someone who studied English at Oxford, writing for a living can’t have been that much of a stretch though? “Well, originally I wanted to be a journalist, and while working as a court reporter realised I was more interested in the law,” Anna remembers. “I don’t regret my legal career at all, and even though I love books it never occurred to me that I could make a living out of it.
“Plus, I was the first person in my family to go to uni (although my sister then went to Bailliol). People really took the piss out of my south London accent when I arrived in Oxford, but I loved studying there. It’s where I met my husband, and I still have great friends from my time there. It was a fantastic experience and a beautiful place.”
Regardless of her own fascination with such dark subject matter, why does Anna think that crime fiction remains so popular? “People read for different reasons, but sometimes they want to explore emotions and humanity, to explore the dark stuff and think about the difficult things in life from a safe space.
“80% of crime fiction readers are women because they are concerned about what’s coming and how to protect themselves and their families, and reading is a way of doing that. But it’s also perfect escapism and we all need a bit of that!”
St Hilda’s Crime Weekend runs from August 8-11. More info here https://www.st-hildas.ox.ac.uk/events/2025-crime-fiction-weekend
