L. H. Draken

L. H. Draken grew up galavanting about the US. Her childhood taught her to crave the learning curve that comes with starting life over in a new place. She loves the excitement of exploring new places and meeting quirky new characters and is sometimes most comfortable as an outsider. This could be why the last place she truly felt at home was in Beijing, where she was as much an outsider as one can be. Draken’s background is in High Energy Physics, which is how she ended up doing research in south-west Beijing, but once in Beijing, she decided to leave physics and got a job in the Chinese capital to stay. While learning the little insider tricks to life in China, Draken realized how much her daily experiences went to explaining a complicated country. One heavily polluted evening, while pushing her son's pram through the heavy coal-doped smog of winter and trying to avoid frozen wads of spit on the sidewalk, the plot for a medical thriller came to her. She hurried home and started writing her first book. Draken folded in her quirky daily-life experiences that made life in Beijing so exciting, along with the politics she saw from inside the country, to create what she calls Chinese-Noir. She wanted to unravel the complexity of China for curious readers who see this eastern giant from the outside. Her first book is The Year of the Rabid Dragon. L.H. Draken spent nearly five years in China. Draken's first son was born in Beijing, and he still says he’s from China. She has since moved to Munich, Germany. Lawrence adores a well-pulled espresso, mountaineering, and walking through cities after dark. Follow her on social media @ lhdraken, or on www.lhdraken.com