Olivia Waite

Seattle

Author and Columnist at The New York Times

Award-winning romance and sff author, New York Times romance fiction columnist. Repped by @millercallihan. Half agony, half hope, bisexual. She/her.

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Articles

Terry Pratchett's Best Books

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Olivia Waite

The prolific fantasy author, best known for his Discworld series, infused his writing with empathy and humor. Here's where to start. Credit... Jesse Wild/Future, via Getty Images Terry Pratchett spent more than half of his six decades on Earth writing Discworld, a sprawling fantasy series where, among many other threads, Death begins as a villain, drifts into heroism and ends as something very near to a friend. This is not because Pratchett was insensitive to the tragedy of death.
New Romance Books That Will Upend Your World - The New York Times

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Olivia Waite

Our columnist on the month’s best new releases.
New Romance Novels

2 months ago | nytimes.com | Olivia Waite

Our columnist on the month's best new releases. Credit... Michela Buttignol Despite romance's reputation as light comfort reading, the genre has a bass line of chaos pulsing through it - the distinction being that romance presents chaos as survivable, even if your entire world is upended.
Teatime in Space: Culture and Colonialism in SFF

2 months ago | reactormag.com | Olivia Waite

Note: Spoilers for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the Imperial Radch trilogy will, obviously, abound. So it seems only fair to spoil a little bit of the following essay itself, and tell you that I’m going to start by saying one of the most stupefyingly obvious things someone can say. It’s going somewhere, I promise. The thing about space is that tea doesn’t grow there. Tea grows on Earth.
New Romance Books

Mar 26, 2025 | nytimes.com | Olivia Waite

Our critic on the month's best new releases. We all sometimes have to put up shields between ourselves and the rest of the world. But safety leaves us solitary - we need love and understanding, and both those things require us to be open and vulnerable. The characters in this month's romances are unusually closed-off, leading to uncommonly glorious endings when they finally drop those shields.
MURDER BY MEMORY by Olivia Waite Read by Blair Baker | Audiobook Review | AudioFile Magazine

Mar 23, 2025 | audiofilemagazine.com | Olivia Waite

Blair Baker narrates this sci-fi mystery. Dorothy Gentleman is a detective aboard the HMS FAIRWEATHER, an interstellar passenger ship--spaceship, that is. To her surprise, she wakes up in an unfamiliar body just as a murder victim is found, a situation that leads to several more terrible developments. Baker's depiction of Dorothy's initial confusion over her predicament quickly gives way to confidence and competence as she finds her investigative footing.
Science Fiction, Locked Room Mysteries, and the Joy of Literary Games

Mar 19, 2025 | crimereads.com | Olivia Waite

Let me be very obvious at the start and say: a murder victim can’t tell you who the killer is. Locked-room mysteries are puzzling because the only person you’re sure was in the room is the one person you can’t ask for testimony. That’s also what makes locked-room plots such challenging things to read or write — a baffling impossibility turns out to be an illusion with a material explanation.
ðŸŽ§ Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite

Mar 18, 2025 | booksofmyheart.net | Olivia Waite

Review copy was received from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Novella Review: Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite

Mar 7, 2025 | bibliosanctum.com | Olivia Waite

I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own. Murder by Memory by Olivia WaiteMogsy’s Rating: 3 of 5 stars Genre: Science Fiction, MysterySeries: Book 1 of Dorothy GentlemanPublisher: Tordotcom (March 18, 2025)Length: 325 pagesAuthor Information: Website | TwitterI’d never read Olivia Waite before, but apparently she’s known for her romance writing.
Queer Historical Romance Novels: A Starter Pack

Feb 26, 2025 | news.nestia.com | Olivia Waite

Queer Historical Romance Novels: A Starter Pack Our columnist recommends books featuring centuries of L.G.B.T.Q. love stories that defy tragedy, laugh in the face of shame and lean into unabashed joy. By Olivia Waite Feb. 26, 2025 Share full article 8 Writing a list of queer historical romances feels half like writing a manifesto and half like writing a eulogy. Here are the love stories we created; here are our voices and hopes and desires, when we were still allowed to openly name them.