Barbara Mertz is an American author who writes under the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

s Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels.

Barbara Mertz has a Ph.D from the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 in Egyptology

Egyptology

Egyptology is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious practices in the AD 4th century. A practitioner of the discipline is an “Egyptologist”...

, studying under John A. Wilson

John A. Wilson (Egyptologist)

John Albert Wilson was an American Egyptologist who was the Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago....

, which she received at the age of 23. She has written two books on ancient Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 (both of which have been continuously in print since first publication), but has primarily written mystery and suspense novels. She has been a published writer since 1964.

Under the name Barbara Michaels, she writes primarily gothic and supernatural thrillers. The name was chosen by her publisher since she had already published one nonfiction book on ancient Egypt, and the publisher did not want her novels to be confused with her academic work. She publishes her Amelia Peabody

Amelia Peabody

Amelia Peabody Emerson is the protagonist of the Amelia Peabody series, a series of mystery novels, written by author Elizabeth Peters. Peabody is married to Egyptologist Radcliffe Emerson and has one biological child, Walter "Ramses" Peabody Emerson, who provides a parallel voice in many of the...

 series under the name Elizabeth Peters, a nom de plume drawn from the names of her two children.

She is member of the Editorial Advisory Board of KMT

Kmt (journal)

Kmt is a magazine on ancient Egypt published quarterly by Kmt communications. It takes its name from the ancient Egyptian word for their country, kemet, meaning "black land" in reference to the fertile black soil of the Nile valley. The first issue was published in Spring 1990...

, ("A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt"), Egypt Exploration Society

Egypt Exploration Society

The Egypt Exploration Society is the foremost learned society in the United Kingdom promoting the field of Egyptology....

 and the James Henry Breasted

James Henry Breasted

James Henry Breasted was an American archaeologist and historian. After completing his PhD at the University of Berlin in 1894, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago. In 1901 he became director of the Haskell Oriental Museum at the University of Chicago, where he continued to...

 Circle of the Oriental Institute

Oriental Institute

Oriental Institute may refer to a number of institutes of Oriental studies:United States* Oriental Institute, Chicago, part of the University of ChicagoEngland* Oriental Institute, Oxford, part of the University of Oxford...

.

Nonfiction books

• Temples, Tombs, and Hieroglyphs--1964; rev. ed. 2007
• Two Thousand Years in Rome (with Richard Mertz)--1968
• Red Land, Black Land--1978; rev. ed.2008

Amelia Peabody

, this series contains 19 books; the most recent, A River in the Sky, was published in April 2010.
The heroine is an Egyptologist and is married, with one child of her body, Ramses, and two others of her heart: Nefret Forth (3 years older than Ramses) and, later, Sennia (ca. 25 years younger). The stories all relate to the "Golden Age" of Egyptology and nearly all are set in Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, the excavations providing the backdrop for the mystery/adventure plots.

The timeline begins in the 1880s with Amelia's decision to see the world as an unexpectedly-wealthy, feminist spinster, and ends with the discovery of Tutankhamun

Tutankhamun

Tutankhamun , Egyptian , ; approx. 1341 BC – 1323 BC) was an Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty , during the period of Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom...

's tomb in 1922. (Peters has said that additional books in the series will "fill in the blanks" in the chronology—e.g., River is set in 1910.)

1. Covers the 1884–85 Season.
2. Covers the 1892–93 Season.
3. Covers the 1894–95 Season.
4. Covers the 1895–96 Season.
5. Covers Summer 1896.
6. Covers the 1897–98 Season.
7. Covers the 1898–99 Season.
8. Covers the 1899–1900 Season.
9. Covers the 1903–04 Season.
10. Covers the 1906–07 Season.
11. Covers the 1911–12 Season.
12. Covers the 1914–15 Season.
13. Covers the 1915–16 Season.
14. Covers the 1916–17 Season.
15. Covers the 1919–20 Season.
16. Covers the 1907–08 Season.
17. Covers the 1922 Season
19. Covers the 1909-1910 season in Palestine.

additionally: Amelia Peabody's Egypt: A Compendium - Published October 2003

Vicky Bliss

The Vicky Bliss novels follow the adventures of an American professor of art history who keeps getting involved in international crime and a love interest, a charming art thief known as Sir John Smythe. Another Peters novel, The Camelot Caper (1969), while not technically a Vicky Bliss story, features Smythe. The novels can be enjoyed in any order, but the stories are highly sequential in nature and are probably better appreciated if read in order of publication.

1. Borrower of the Night (1973)
2. Street of the Five Moons (1978)
3. Silhouette in Scarlet (1983)
4. Trojan Gold (1987)
5. Night Train to Memphis (1994)
6. The Laughter of Dead Kings (2008)

This series and the Amelia Peabody series are slightly related: a fictional tomb discovered by Amelia Peabody and her husband plays an important role in Night Train to Memphis, and in The Laughter of Dead Kings it is revealed that John Smythe is related to the Emersons.

Jacqueline Kirby

Jacqueline Kirby is a librarian with a very large purse and a knack for solving mysteries.

Jacqueline makes her first appearance as an unwilling detective in The Seventh Sinner. Though it was intended as a stand-alone novel, her maturity, quirkiness, and pursuit of romantic relationships made the character stand out, and generated a popular following. The character blossomed with Murders of Richard III and Die For Love, the latter of which featured her wearing increasingly outrageous costumes, and launching on a career as a romance novelist. Jacqueline continued her new career in Naked Once More, writing a sequel to a "famous" prehistoric romance novel.

1. The Seventh Sinner (1972)
2. Murders of Richard III (1974)
3. Die for Love (1984)
4. Naked Once More (1989)

Other fiction

• The Jackal's Head (1968)
• Her Cousin John (1969) The Camelot Caper (1988) - see above
• The Dead Sea Cipher (1970)
• The Night of Four Hundred Rabbits (1971)
• Legend in Green Velvet (1976)
• Devil-May-Care (1977)
• Summer of the Dragon (1979)
• The Love Talker (1980)
• The Copenhagen Connection
  The Copenhagen Connection (novel)
  The Copenhagen Connection is a 1982 mystery novel by American writer Barbara Mertz published under the pseudonym Elizabeth Peters . It tells the story of American scholar Elizabeth Jones who during a sabbatical in Copenhagen, Denmark, meets her idol, brilliant Nobel Prize-Laureate Margaret...
  
  (1982)

Fiction written as Barbara Michaels

Georgetown trilogy

• Ammie Come Home--1968 - Adapted and made into the Made-for TV movie, The House That Would Not Die, starring Barbara Stanwyk and Richard Egan.
• Shattered Silk--1986 (sequel to Ammie Come Home)
• Stitches in Time--1995 (Last in the Ammie Come Home series)

Someone in the House

• Someone in the House--1981
• Black Rainbow--1982 (prequel to Someone in the House)

Stand-alone novels

• The Master of Blacktower--1966
• Sons of the Wolf--1967
• Prince of Darkness--1969
• The Dark on the Other Side--1970
• The Crying Child--1971
• Greygallows--1972
• Witch--1973
• House of Many Shadows--1974
• The Sea King's Daughter--1975
• Patriot's Dream--1976
• Wings of the Falcon
  Wings of the Falcon
  Wings of the Falcon is a thriller, historical romance novel by Barbara Michaels published originally in 1977.The novel tells the story of Francesca who becomes entangled with the mysterious Il Falcone in a political plot in midst of Italian Revolution of 1860.-Synopsis:Set during Italian...
  
  --1977
• Wait for What Will Come--1978
• The Walker in the Shadows--1979
• The Wizard's Daughter--1980
• Here I Stay--1983
• The Grey Beginning--1984
• Be Buried in the Rain--1985
• Search the Shadows--1987
• Smoke and Mirrors--1989
• "The Runaway" (ss)--Sisters in Crime, ed. Marilyn Wallace, 1989
• Into the Darkness--1990
• Vanish with the Rose--1992
• Houses of Stone--1993
• The Dancing Floor--1997
• Other Worlds--1999

External links

• Official Web Site
• Barbara Michaels at Fantastic Fiction
• Elizabeth Peters at Fantastic Fiction