Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II appointed Dreda an MBE in her New Year Honours List 2020.
She scooped the CWA’s John Creasey Dagger (New Blood) Award for best first-time crime novel in 2005, the first time a Black British author has received this honour.
Ryan and Dreda write across the crime and mystery genre—psychological thrillers, gritty gangland crime and fast-paced action books. Spare Room, their first psychological thriller, was a #1 UK and US Amazon bestseller.
Dreda is a passionate campaigner and speaker on social issues and the arts. She has appeared on television, including Celebrity Pointless, Celebrity Eggheads, Alan Carr’s Adventures with Agatha Christie, BBC Breakfast, Sunday Morning Live, Newsnight, The Review Show and Front Row Late on BBC2. Ryan and Dreda performed a specially commissioned monologue for the ground-breaking Sky Arts’ Art 50 on Sky TV.
Dreda is one of twelve international bestselling women writers who have written a reimagined Miss Marple short story for the thrilling bestselling anthology Marple. She talked about this on The Queen Consort’s Royal Reading Room.
Dreda has been a guest on many radio shows and presented BBC Radio 4’s flagship books programme, Open Book. She has written in a number of leading newspapers including the Guardian and was thrilled to be named one of Britain’s 50 Remarkable Women by Lady Geek in association with Nokia. She is a trustee of the Royal Literary Fund and an ambassador for The Reading Agency.
Some of Dreda and Ryan’s books are currently in development as TV and film adaptations.
Dreda’s parents are from the beautiful Caribbean island of Grenada. Her name, Dreda, is Irish and pronounced with a long vowel ee sound in the middle.
