Rachel Joyce is the author of the novels The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Perfect, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, The Music Shop, and Miss Benson's Beetle, as well as the digital short story A Faraway Smell of Lemon and a story collection, A Snow Garden & Other Stories. Her books have sold over five million copies worldwide and have been translated into thirty-six languages. Harold Fry was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize and longlisted for the Booker Prize, and is soon to be a major film starring Jim Broadbent. Joyce has been the Specsavers National Book Awards "New Writer of the Year" and shortlisted for "UK Author of the Year." Joyce has also written more than thirty original afternoon plays and adaptions of the classics for BBC Radio 4, including all the Brontë novels. She moved to writing after a long career as an actor, performing leading roles for the RSC, the National Theatre, and Cheek by Jowl. She lives with her family in Gloucestershire.