About Tessa

Born in Winnipeg, Canada, Tessa lived in British Columbia, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Mainz, Germany before her family settled near the border of Vermont in Lennoxville, Quebec. She attended Concordia University in Montreal where she studied Communications and read voraciously (as she was raised by a librarian and a professor). 

After several years of working in digital advertising and as a freelance tech and business journalist, Tessa met her husband and immigrated to the U.S. Over the next four years she lived in four different states and eventually arrived in Chicago. It was there that she began the slow transition from reporting to writing fiction. During this time, Tessa also won first place in the Crime category of the Eighth Annual Writer’s Digest Magazine Popular Fiction Awards for her short story Moms’ Night Out, which was inspired by a real-life evening in Avondale that involved three mothers and wedding-crashing but - happily - no murders. 

Tessa has visited the Thousand Islands, where Death in the Family is set, every summer for the past sixteen years, and continues to be captivated by its unique atmosphere. She currently lives in Connecticut with her husband and children, where she studies dance and martial arts and is at work on her next novel.