John Stephens is the New York Times bestselling author of the middle-grade fantasy trilogy Books of Beginning (The Emerald Atlas, The Fire Chronicle, The Black Reckoning), and he brings his YA debut, The Age of Fury (Knopf Books for Young Readers, October 2026), to the Salt Lake Book Festival. Set in Gilded Age New York, the novel follows seventeen-year-old Caitlin Quinn, who crosses the ocean from Ireland to avenge her twin sister’s murder, and forms an uneasy alliance with William Furey, the city’s most feared — and most haunted — gangster. Told from both perspectives, their hunt for the truth pulls them from the city’s darkest corners to its most glittering ballrooms, where a secret can mean death and love comes at a perilous price.

Before turning to novels, John spent years as a writer and producer for some of television’s most influential teen dramas — a staff writer on Gilmore Girls, a producer on The O.C., and executive producer of both Gossip Girl and Gotham. That instinct for propulsive plotting and high-stakes tension carries straight into The Age of Fury, which School Library Journal praised for blending “historical aspects of the period with action, mystery, humor, and an underlying tone of romance.”

He lives with his family in Pasadena, California. Catch him at the Salt Lake Book Festival for a conversation on gangsters, ghosts, and the fine line between monster and man — just three days before The Age of Fury hits shelves on October 20.