Margot Douaihy


Margot Douaihy is an American mystery novelist and poet. She was a Lambda Literary Award finalist for her poetry collection Girls Like You, and her mysteries have been honored as Best Crime Novels of the Year by the New York Times and other publications.
𝕏 MargotDouaihy

Career

Douaihy's Bandit/Queen: The Runaway Story of Belle Starr and Scranton Lace are documentary poetry projects centering themes of queerness, abandoned structures and institutions, feminist becoming, and class tensions.
Douaihy is a co-editor of the Cambridge University Press Elements in Crime Narratives series. Her writing has been featured in The Tahoma Literary Review, The Petigru Review, Petrichor, and The Adirondack Review.
She has taught at Marywood University, Franklin Pierce University, and at Emerson College. She is currently an assistant professor with the Writing, Literature, and Publishing Department at Emerson College in Boston.

Sister Holiday mystery series

Douaihy's debut novel, Scorched Grace: A Sister Holiday Mystery, was published by Gillian Flynn Books in 2023. It is a crime mystery novel that follows "Sister Holiday, a chain-smoking, heavily tattooed, queer nun, puts her amateur sleuthing skills to the test." The novel was the first to be published under Gillian Flynn's imprint; Flynn called the novel "a sneaky, dark thriller and a character study in a freight train of a murder mystery." Scorched Grace was published in French with HarperCollins France and in the UK with Pushkin Vertigo. The Sister Holiday audiobooks are narrated by Mara Wilson.
Scorched Grace received numerous accolades, including a starred review by Publishers Weekly, which called it a "stunning fiction debut... briskly plotted master class in character development." Scorched Grace was twice recognized by The New York Times, as a New York Times ''Book Review Editors’ Choice, and as a New York Times Best Crime Novel of the Year for 2023. The Guardian twice recognized Scorched Grace as one of the best crime and thriller novels of 2023.''
The sequel to Scorched Grace, titled Blessed Water: A Sister Holiday Mystery, follows Sister Holiday on a second investigation in New Orleans beginning with the discovery of the body of a priest floating in the Mississippi River. Following its release in March 2024, Blessed Water received praise from several media outlets and writers organizations. The Center for Fiction described the book as "a literary treat". The Times described the book as "powerful," noting that it "plumbs the depth of human cruelty." Publishers Weekly described Blessed Water as a "deliriously enjoyable, relentlessly plotted adventure" noting that the Sister Holiday series "continues to impress". Blessed Water was named a New York Times Best Crime Novels of 2024.
A third installment in the mystery series, Divine Ruin, is scheduled to be published in January 2026. Gillian Flynn calls the novel "fearlessly inspired." A starred review by Publishers Weekly called it a "crackling third installment"

Novels

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Poetry

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Awards and recognition

For ''Scorched Grace''

For ''Blessed Water''

Personal life

Margot Douaihy was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and is of Lebanese ancestry. Douaihy is a queer woman and a longtime advocate for LGBTQ+ inclusion and visibility and antiracist education.
She was raised Maronite Catholic, and attended Catholic school as a child. She noted in 2023 that the Church played "a profound influence in my life, but I haven’t practiced regularly in years".
She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Lancaster.
Douaihy lived in New Orleans from 2008 to 2010.