Alex Barclay

In July 2019 it was announced that a new book for younger readers was submitted, a diary-form novel, My Heart & Other Breakables: How I lost my mom, found my dad, and made friends with catastrophe, with a hardback publication date of March 2020, this being the first volume in a two-book deal with HarperCollins Childrens Books.

A new book was announced by HarperCollins in 2019, and was launched on August 2 with an interview and reading at a joint event of the Skibbereen Arts Festival and the West Cork Literary Festival, at Liss Ard. A novel, I Confess is promoted as a psychological thriller, on release August 22 in Ireland and the UK.

As of July 2019 UK / Ireland sales Per Nielsen BookScan (covering most outlets) of Barclay's crime novels had reached nearly 300,000 copies.

In 2013, Barclay released a novel for young adults, Curse of Kings. It was billed as the first of a series of six, the Trials of Oland Born, though no further titles in this series have been scheduled or published as of 2019, and in a 2016 interview, the author referred to the book in the singular.

Barclay's first novel about a female agent with a bipolar condition, Ren Bryce, entitled Blood Runs Cold, was published in 2008, and she won the inaugural Crime Fiction Award, sponsored by Ireland AM, at the Irish Book Awards, for this. Bryce works with an imaginary FBI group, the Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force, based in Denver, Colorado. Five more books followed in this series, which has not concluded. The author continued a research-based approach for this series, with visits to the USA, including an invited visit to the FBI regional HQ in Denver.

Her second novel, The Caller, also featuring NYPD's Joe Lucchesi, was released in 2007; it was marketed in some territories as Last Call. The author mentioned in a 2007 interview that her fourth book - after a third book featuring an FBI agent - would return to Lucchesi but this did not transpire. However she restated in a 2014 interview that the Lucchesi character would return. The Caller is Barclay's top-selling book to date in the UK / Ireland market. After its publication, Barclay and her agent also secured a publisher contract for three more books.

Barclay moved to the Beara Peninsula, West Cork, in 2007, and as of 2019 was still living in the village of Eyeries near Pallas Strand and Coulagh Bay.

In 2003 key elements of Darkhouse came suddenly to mind, and after discussing a few paragraphs with her husband, Williams left the fashion publishing industry to write the novel. With three chapters written, a prominent London agent, Darley Anderson, expressed interest and Williams took six months of travelling time to finish the novel's first draft, including a period at the Anam Cara Writer's and Artist's Retreat in Eyeries on the Beara Peninsula, and with much of it written in Dunmore East, a seaside resort location similar to one of the main locales of the story. She put a strong emphasis on research, engaging experts from a lighhouse specialist to the Irish State Pathologist, Prof. Marie Cassidy. Her agent conducted an auction secured a substantial two-book rights deal, and international rights sales quickly followed.

Morris married Brian Williams, who was working in design, and production of commercials (TV ads), in 2000, when she was 25, and became Yve Williams. The wedding took place at Kilquiggan, Co. Wicklow, and the couple settled in Sandymount on Dublin's coast. Brian Williams did design work for local band U2 and many companies, and later also directed shorts, filming in Ireland, the UK, the US, and Ukraine, and winning a range of awards.

Morris was born in Bayside, Dublin, and attended Manor House School, Raheny. She studied journalism with French at Dublin City University, graduating in 1996. Her course included a period of study in France, at Nanterre University in Paris, when she lived in the 19th arrondissement with two friends, and worked part-time. She later worked further in France. Subsequently she also trained at the Gaiety School of Acting, afterwards appearing, for example, on television with Podge and Rodge.

Yve Williams, née Morris, popularly known as Alex Barclay (born Bayside, Dublin, Ireland in 1974), is a former Irish journalist turned crime writer. After qualifying at Dublin City University, she worked for magazines including U Magazine and the RTE Guide before turning to crime writing. She has published two novels in one series, six in another, and other books.