Caroline Woods is the author of The Mesmerist (Doubleday), a 2024 NPR Book of the Year, as well as Fräulein M. (Gallery Books) and The Lunar Housewife (Doubleday, June 2022), which received acclaim from The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the TODAY Show, the Read with Jenna community, and more.

A Pushcart Prize nominee, Caroline has taught creative writing at Loyola University Chicago, Boston University, and the Boston Conservatory. In 2008 she completed an MFA in Creative Writing at BU, where she studied under Leslie Epstein, Ha Jin, and Allegra Goodman. She earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Virginia, where she was a Jefferson Scholar.

Caroline has loved scary stories, little-known history, and the supernatural since she was very small. (And her daughters are now following in her footsteps, eek!) As a teenager, she published a book of ghost stories, Haunted Delaware, which received praise as a self-publishing success story in The Village Voice, Writer’s Digest, and elsewhere. 

Caroline is represented by Shannon Hassan of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. Raised in Delaware, she now lives near Chicago with her husband and two daughters.