Vera Kurian is a writer and scientist based in Washington, DC. Her debut novel, Never Saw Me Coming, was an Edgar Award nominee and named one of the New York Times best thrillers of 2021. Her short fiction has been published in magazines such as Glimmer Train, One Day, and The Pinch. She has a PhD in social psychology, where she studied intergroup relations, ideology, and quantitative methods. A Step Past Darkness is her second novel.