Claudia Gray (real name Amy Vincent) is an American author specializing mainly in young adult fiction, in particular paranormal romance and science fiction. Her best known works include the Evernight series and a number of Star Wars novels and short stories set in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, including prequels to The Force Awakens and a prequel focusing on Princess Leia prior A New Hope.
Works of Claudia Gray with their own pages include:
- The Evernight series (2008 - 2012)
- Star Wars:
- Lost Stars (2015)
- Bloodline (2016)
- Leia, Princess of Alderaan (2017)
- From a Certain Point of View, chapter "Master and Apprentice" (2017)
- Master and Apprentice (2019)
- The High Republic:
- Into the Dark (2021)
- The Fallen Star (2022)
Her other works include:
- Love Stories with Bite: anthology series; both of Gray's stories are set in the Evernight universe
- Immortal, story "Free" (2008)
- Eternal, story "Bloodshed" (2010)
- Vacations from Hell, story "I Don't Like Your Girlfriend" (2009)
- Fateful (2011)
- Spellcaster series
- Spellcaster (2013)
- The First Midnight Spell (2013): Prequel novella
- Steadfast (2014)
- Sorceress (2015)
- Firebird trilogy
- A Thousand Pieces of You (2014)
- Ten Thousand Skies Above You (2015)
- A Million Worlds Without You (2016)
- Constellation trilogy
- Defy the Stars (2017)
- Defy the Worlds (2018)
- Defy the Fates (2019)
- House of El: graphic novel series illustrated by Eric Zawadzki
- The Shadow Threat (2021)
- The Murder of Mr Wickham (2022)
- The Haunted Mansion: Storm & Shade (2023)
Tropes associated with the creator and her works:
- Attention Deficit Creator Disorder: She tends to have multiple projects going on at once; part way through the Spellcaster series she began writing the Firebird trilogy, and she started writing Star Wars novels around the same time. Immediately after finishing the Firebird trilogy, she began writing the Constellation series while simultaneously writing for the Star Wars EU and working on other projects.
- Creator's Oddball: The majority of her work falls easily under the Speculative Fiction umbrella, with the notable exception of The Murder of Mr Wickham, in which Jane Austen characters find themselves in an Agatha Christie style murder mystery. Lots of Gray's novels do involve mysteries, though this one is more of a mundane Cozy Mystery.
- Genre Shift: Started out writing paranormal romance novels, before ending up writing Star Wars novels and a Superman graphic novel, although she had started writing sci-fi before that and still generally incorporates similar themes and tones in her books.
- Gothic Horror: Her early novels (in particular the Evernight series) are strongly influenced by this genre.
- Historical Fantasy: The 2011 standalone novel Fateful is set on the RMS Titanic...with werewolves.
- Hypothetical Casting: She often does this with her Star Wars novels (for example, she imagines Senator Ransolm Casterfo as Tom Hiddleston and Leia's First Love Kier Domadi as Rami Malek).
- Love Across Battlelines: In the Constellation trilogy, Noemi Vidal is a teen soldier fighting for her colony's independence and falls in love with Abel, a member of Earth's robotic army.
- Pen Name: Her real name is Amy Vincent. She admitted she had no particular reason for choosing to use a pseudonym; she just thought it would be fun to do so. According to her website, the name "Claudia" was inspired by I, Claudius, which she's stated is a favorite of hers.
- Similarly Named Works: The Firebird trilogy shares its name with Kathy Tyers' series (originally also a trilogy before being expanded to five books). Both series are in the science fiction genre and prominently feature a romance, but beyond that there's not much similarity (as for the titles' meaning, in Tyers' series it refers to the main protagonist, while in Gray's it refers to technology that's integral to the plot). note
- Star-Crossed Lovers: This trope appears in almost every novel she's ever written, often combined with Forbidden Romance. Few love interests ever get together easily and overcoming various obstacles to be together often forms a major part of the plot.
- Theme Naming: The titles of the books in the Spellcaster series all start with "S" (with the exception of the prequel novella The First Midnight Spell): Spellcaster, Steadfast and Sorceress.
- The War of Earthly Aggression: The main conflict of the Constellation trilogy revolves around the inhabitants of Genesis, a former colony of Earth, fighting for independence.
- Write What You Know: On her biography, she states she once worked as "an extremely poor waitress"; in Hourglass, Bianca Olivier also has a brief and disastrous stint as a waitress. Gray also stated she grew up in a small town, which also applies to Evernight's main heroines, Bianca and Skye.
