BOOKSELLER. EDITOR.

NOW THE ONE WRITING THE TWISTS.

ABOUT LEODORA

Leodora Darlington is a London-based writer with Ghanaian heritage, and the author of the explosive debut thriller The Exes — a Good Morning America and Grazia Book Club Pick, named one of the year's hottest reads by Stylist, Marie Claire and Essence.

Leodora’s first professional foray into the world of books was an enjoyable time as a bookseller in the Harrods Bookshop, which she undertook during her undergraduate degree. After her creative writing MA, Leodora worked in commercial fiction publishing for the best part of a decade, named a Bookseller Rising Star in 2021, and leaving her role as Publishing Director at Hachette Book Group in 2025.

Previous authors she has worked with include: Angela Marsons, D. S. Butler, Frances Mensah Williams, Jeneva Rose, J. R. Ellis, Kathryn Croft, Lucy Goacher, M.J. Arlidge, M.M. Chouinard, Mandasue Heller, Matt Brolly, Shalini Boland, Steph Broadribb, and Tasha Coryell.

In 2021, Leodora launched the Owned Voices Novel Award. Shortlisted authors and winners have since gone on to receive representation from established agents at agencies such as Curtis Brown. Owned Voices aims to help writers from under-represented backgrounds who would one day like to see their novels in print develop both their writing talent and their understanding of the publishing industry.

In addition to Owned Voices, Leodora has launched other literature prizes with partners such as OWN IT!, Amazon Publishing, and Spread the Word. She has also been a judge for awards like the Lucy Cavendish Prize, Mo Siewcharran Prize and Criminal Lines Prize. You can also find her speaking at a range of festivals and panels, with previous speaking engagements at the Barbican, Southbank Centre, and Bangalore Literature Festival.

FAST FACTS

Based in London of Ghanaian heritage
MA Creative Writing, Brunel University (Distinction)
Bookseller Rising Star, 2021
Former Publishing Director with a decade of experience in trade publishing
Debut Novel: The Exes (Published by Dutton/Penguin in February 2026)
Founder of The Alice Darlington Novel Award, formerly known as Owned Voices.
Host of On the Same Page

CURRENTLY

Plotting a screen adaptation of The Exes, whilst also writing novel two, and training to get back on stage after a decade away from acting.

Leodora Darlington smiling with curly hair wearing a blue blouse and a gold necklace.

SIX THINGS ABOUT ME

Chosen family saved my life. After losing my mother in my twenties, I built a London "chosen family" of friends from scratch. We talk a lot about romantic love, but platonic love and sisterhood are the true safety nets in life — it's the quiet heart of everything I write.

1

My dark thriller started out as a rom-com pun. I'm a shameless romance addict — give me fake dating or enemies-to-lovers any day. But I couldn't ignore how often modern romance becomes unsafe for women. A title popped into my head — To All the Boys I Killed Before — and that's how The Exes was born.

2

I went undercover to get my literary agent. A decade as a commissioning editor taught me exactly how the industry works — so I built a fake identity to query my own manuscript and get the most honest response possible.

3

It's never too late to rewrite your family legacy. We all carry invisible baggage from our upbringing. Breaking generational patterns is messy work — but self-forgiveness and real happiness are always within reach.

4

I almost became an actor. My first creative love was the stage, long before publishing. Leaving my day job to write full-time opened up the bandwidth to step back into theatre — writing, performing, collaborating in live spaces again.

5

I'm plotting a screen adaptation. I think in scenes before I type a single word of prose — so taking The Exes from page to screen, and eventually writing scripts myself, feels like coming full circle.

6

LEODORA RECOMMENDS

I don't have twenty years of backlist to hand you yet — so here's the next best thing: an honest, running list of what I'm reading, loving, and forcing on every friend who'll listen.

ON MY BOOKSHELF

The Employees

Olga Ravn

A spare, unsettling piece of sci-fi told in witness statements from a spaceship crew of humans and humanoids.

Giovanni's Room

James Baldwin

The queer literary classic on desire, shame and self-exile in Paris. As precise and devastating as ever.

Strange Pictures

Uketsu

The viral Japanese mystery phenomenon, told through photographs and puzzles. Unlike anything else on this list.

Empire of the Damned

Jay Kristoff

Vampires, blood and gothic excess — book two of the Empire of the Vampire series, for when I need to escape completely.

Tender Is the Flesh

Agustina Bazterrica

A stomach-turning, brilliant satire set in a world where human meat has been legalised. Not for the faint-hearted.

The Dispossessed

Ursula K. Le Guin

A genre-defining anarchist utopia, and still one of the sharpest political novels ever written in any genre.

The Nickel Boys

Colson Whitehead

A devastating, Pulitzer-winning novel inspired by the real horrors of a reform school. Essential reading.

Prophet Song

Paul Lynch

A Booker Prize winner: a mother watches her country slide into authoritarianism in real time. Devastating.

Noughts & Crosses

Malorie Blackman

The YA classic that flips racial power dynamics on their head — it still lands like a gut-punch as an adult.

WHAT ELSE I’M INTO

LEODORA RECOMMENDS

People assume that ten years acquiring dark, gritty crime fiction means my cultural diet is exclusively Booker winners and arthouse cinema. In reality, I love those just as much as I love The Real Housewives.