Barbara Michaels

Author Information
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  • Bibliography:
    33 Books (1 Series)
  • First Book:
    January 1966
  • Latest Book:
    October 2009
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About the Author

Barbara Mertz was born and brought up in Illinois and earned her Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Chicago's famed Oriental Institute. She wrote two books on Egyptian history before turning to mysteries.

In 1968 she began writing light mysteries using both the name Elizabeth Peters and Barbars Michaels. In 1975 as Peters she began a series in which she could use her Ph.D. more extensively: the Amelia Peabody historical mysteries about archaeologists set mostly in Egypt. So far, there are 19.

Peters was named Grand Master at the inaugural Anthony Awards in 1986, Grandmaster by the Mystery Writers of America at the Edgar Awards in 1998, and given The Lifetime Achievement Award at Malice Domestic in 2003. She lives in an historic farmhouse in western Maryland.

Full Series List in Order

Georgetown

1 - Ammie, Come Home (Jan-1968)
2 - Shattered Silk (Oct-1986)
3 - Stitches in Time (May-1995)

Book List in Order: 33 titles

  • The Master of Blacktower

    • / Romantic Suspense
    • Buy Buy

    WHAT IS THE SECRET THAT HAUNTS THE MASTER OF BLACKTOWER? His hands were encased in black silk gloves, a lurid scar twisting the roughly hewn features of his face. His dark eyes blazed, and his mocking laughter echoed to the highest tower of the an...

  • Sons of the Wolf

    • / Romantic Suspense
    • Buy Buy

    A heart of darkness unveiled by the light of the moon... Ada and Harriet had never met anyone like Mr. Wolfson, the strangely magnetic, darkly funny man who was to be their new guardian. Who, confined to a wheelchair and flanked by two fierce dogs...

  • Ammie, Come Home

    Georgetown - 1

    From the Shadows of the Past... The seance began as a party game. A playful diversion for the guests in Ruth Bennett's fashionable Georgetown home. But when her niece Sara speaks in a voice not her own, the game becomes frighteningly real ... and th...

  • Mystery on the Moors

    Upon the death of their grandmother, Harriet and Ada, two orphaned cousins, are sent to live with their mysterious guardian, Mr. Wolfson, and his two sons at sinister Abbey Manor. Ada is a romantic and gentle girl who perceives none of the dangero...

  • Prince of Darkness

    • / Romantic Suspense
    • Buy Buy

    Peter Stewart's appearance in the small but wealthy Maryland town of Middleburg caused something of a stir among the fashionable citizens. They did not care for outsiders. There was something very eerie about the whole town. For a while Peter thou...

  • The Dark on the Other Side

    • / Romantic Suspense
    • Buy Buy

    The house whispered to her, and she thought she must be going mad. Was there no one to help her? Weird, terrifying things were happening. Or was it all in Linda Randolph's mind? Her husband, Gordon, was convinced that it was. Michael Collins,...

  • The Crying Child

    • / Romantic Suspense
    • Buy Buy

    Trapped Between Madness and Imagination... From the moment she arrived on King's Island, Joanne McMullen knew that her sister's grief over losing her child had driven her dangerously close to madness. Jo grew anxious when Mary confided that she h...

  • Greygallows

    The blackened shell of the house still stands on the edge of the moor. Ivy has crept over the rough stone, veiling the ugly marks of fire, blurring the stark squares of emptiness that once were doors and windows. They had warned Lucy about Baron C...

  • Witch

    A silent stranger moves in twilight shadows... It was more than her dream house. For Ellen March, buying the secluded old house nestled in the pine woods marked the start of a new life. Now she could put her failed marriage behind her, enjoy the q...



  • House of Many Shadows

    She was trying to solve a murder that was two hundred and fifty years old... When Meg's wealthy cousin Sylvia lent her the old house in Pennsylvania, Meg did not dream she would be drawn into a strange girl's distant past and into the brutal murde...

  • The Sea King's Daughter

    Sandy Bishop arrived on the Greek Island of Thera to dive for forbidden treasure with her archaeologist father, from whom she had been separated for twenty years. She hoped it would bring them closer together, hut even now he remained strangely dista...

  • Patriot's Dream

    Jan Wilde came to Williamsburg, Virginia, for a much-needed vacation. But her dreams at night were far from restful.... Night after night, a stranger called to her, reached out to her from two centuries past, fueled by the fires of war and the fury o...

  • Wings of the Falcon

    Nothing in Francesca's imagination had prepared her for the incredible adventures that awaited her in Italy. It was frighteningly alien to her, but there was no other place to turn after her father's death. When her mother's wealthy Italian family...

  • Wait for What Will Come

    • / Romantic Suspense
    • Buy Buy

    Carla Tregellas, last of an ancient Cornish tribe, had suddenly inherited the old family mansion on the cliffs of Cornwall. Much to her surprise she fell in love with it and. longed to keep it. Everyone appeared so kind and welcoming. Except the e...

  • The Walker in Shadows

    IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL OLD HOUSE, FILLED WITH CHARACTER -- TOO MUCH CHARACTER. Both Pat Robbins, a widowed nurse, and Mark, her college-aged son, were curious and pleased when new neighbors moved in next door, into the century-old house that was the t...

  • The Wizard's Daughter

    A penniless yet strikingly beautiful orphan, Marianne Ransom's indomitable spirit has enabled her to survive a cruel life on the backstreets of Victorian London. But it is her gift of second sight that carries her into the world of money and privileg...

  • Black Rainbow

    • / Romantic Suspense
    • Buy Buy

    By the light of a gilded moon, a mysterious black rainbow framed the huddled towers of Grayhaven Manor, a vision of ominous beauty that seemed to warn Megan O'Neill of a darkness within. As the estate's new governess, her apprehensions were banished ...

  • Someone in the House

    In the Shadows of Temptation Grayhaven Manor was a remarkable architectural achievement--an English Gothic mansion, transplanted stone by ancient stone to the isolated hills of Pennsylvania. Anne and Kevin had planned to write a book there that su...

  • Here I Stay

    THE HAUNTING Turning a decrepit old mansion into a beautiful country inn isn't easy, but for Andrea Torgesen, the hard work is exactly what her younger brother, Jim, needs after a serious car accident. Or, so she thinks -- until Jim is haunted by un...



  • The Grey Beginning

    • / Romantic Suspense
    • Buy Buy

    I was looking for Bart. They told me he was dead, but I knew it wasn't true. He was alive, but I could not find him. I pursued shadows down the dark streets of dreaming, shadows that sometimes paused long enough to give me a glimpse of shining gray e...

  • Be Buried in the Rain

    Enter a World Where Forgotten Secrets Never Die... The truth was waiting for Julie Newcomb. Waiting in the shadows of the decaying family plantation. In the cold, dark eyes of her bedridden grandmother. On the lonesome road to Maidenwood--where t...

  • Shattered Silk

    Georgetown - 2

    A KILLER LURKS In her quaint vintage clothing boutique in picturesque Georgetown, Karen Nevitt's laces and white linens seem so innocent. Her aunt's aged friends have even ransacked their attics to help the novice entrepreneur launch her business....

  • Search the Shadows

    Born of a secret tainted bloodline... Haskell Maloney came to Chicago to study Egyptology, following in her mother's academic footsteps. But it was more than a degree she was seeking. Haskell was looking for answers to her mother's untimely death-...

  • Smoke and Mirrors

    BEYOND THE SMOKE, BEHIND THE MASK... The fast-paced world of politics was both exhilarating and daunting to young Erin Hartsock - she came to Washington, D.C., to join the campaign of a charismatic congresswoman. But Erin's enthusiasm turned to d...

  • Into the Darkness

    Upon the death of her grandfather, Meg Venturi unexpectedly inherits the eccentric millionaire's antique jewelry business. There is one catch to her sudden windfall-she must share the wealth with a taciturn and oddly attractive young man who has an e...

  • Scattered Blossoms

    Posing as a landscape architect in order to find out what happened to her brother, Brad, Diana Reed arrives at the Nicholson's eighteenth-century mansion, where Brad was last seen, and enters a bizarre world of treachery. Simultaneous....

  • Vanish With the Rose

    The search for her missing brother brings lawyer Diana Reed to the vast estate where he had worked as a caretaker. She convinces its owner--and herself--that she is an expert rose gardener. But working undercover is only the first step in a dance of ...

  • The Runaway

    in Women on the Edge

    Two teenage girls take refuge in an eerie old house whose mysterious inhabitant is not at all what he seems....

  • Houses of Stone

    FEAR AND DESIRE ENTWINED IN THE SHADOWS OF THE PAST... It was a career-making discovery for English professor Karen Holloway: a battered, faded manuscript, the "lost masterpiece" of a 19th-century poet called Ismene. Almost obsessively, Karen delv...



  • Stitches in Time

    Georgetown - 3

    When an antique bridal quilt appears under mysterious circumstances at the vintage clothing shop where Rachel Grant works, she is fascinated. She has never been able to resist handmade textiles from the past, for she believes that through the ages, w...

  • The Dancing Floor

    For years, Heather Tradescant had dreamed of the journey she and her father would take to England - a pilgrimage to the great gardens of history. But now that her father is dead, Heather is determined to fulfill his dreams, although the trip won't be...

  • Other Worlds

    On a foggy evening, the most famous crime specialists in the world meet in an exclusive club to battle wits over two tantalizing, unsolved cases of ghostly terror... . Those present include Harry Houdini, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, psychoanalyst Nand...

  • The Walker in the Shadows

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Barbara Michaels has published 33 books.

Barbara Michaels does not have a new book coming out soon. The latest book, The Walker in the Shadows, was published in October 2009.

The first book by Barbara Michaels, The Master of Blacktower, was published in January 1966.

Yes. Barbara Michaels has 1 series.
Pseudonyms / Co-Author
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