About Maria Marina

Hi, I’m Maria — novelist, mystery lover and someone who nearly became a police detective or a pathologist before deciding to kill people off on paper instead. I write stories about love, friendship, and (yes) murder — the kind that craves to be solved. My books are driven by characters who aren’t perfect, but who are deeply human: passionate, flawed, brave, and willing to risk everything for someone else’s life.

I guess it’s no surprise that my lifelong obsession with mysteries started young. I was about six when I fell in love with Inspector Rex (yes, Tobias Moretti, of course, the one with the dog). What can I say? I have a soft spot for dangerous, but essentially good guys and girls with pistols. From there, it was all James Bond and any crime/mystery/spy adventures, and a healthy dose of Holmes, Poirot, and Columbo.

Whether it’s an old-school whodunit or a slow-burn romance tangled in secrets, I write to explore the ways we love, lose, and protect each other — and how truth always finds its way out, even from the darkest corners.

Music is a huge part of my creative process. Sometimes a song I’ve heard a hundred times will suddenly hit different — and just like that, a story is born. And I trust what it tells. If my books inspire someone to create, make a change, believe in love, see something in a new light, or even just feel a spark of dopamine, I’ll consider myself a very lucky author.