Bridget Collins author page

Bridget Collins biography

Bridget Collins is a British author of young adult and adult fiction who published her first seven novels under the name B. R. Collins. She studied English at King’s College, Cambridge, before training as an actor at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). She has also written two professionally produced plays, including one performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Her debut novel, The Traitor Game, was published by Bloomsbury in 2008 and won the Branford Boase Award in 2009. Edited by Emma Matthewson, the novel follows two schoolboys, Michael and Francis, whose friendship is tested by betrayal and bullying. Their experiences are reflected in Evgard, an imaginary fantasy world they have created together. The book was also longlisted for the Carnegie Medal.

Collins continued writing young adult fiction for Bloomsbury with A Trick of the Dark (2009), Tyme’s End (2011), Gamerunner (2011), The Broken Road (2012), MazeCheat (2012) and Love in Revolution (2013). Gamerunner and its sequel MazeCheat form a science fiction series involving virtual reality gaming, while The Broken Road draws on the history of the Children’s Crusade.

In 2019, Collins published her first adult novel, The Binding, through HarperCollins’ literary imprint The Borough Press. The historical fantasy follows Emmett Farmer, an apprentice bookbinder who discovers that books can contain memories removed from people’s minds. The novel became a Sunday Times number one bestseller and was shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year 2019.

Her second adult novel, The Betrayals, appeared in 2020 and also became a Sunday Times bestseller. She subsequently published The Silence Factory (2024), a gothic novel involving the discovery of a mysterious material capable of absorbing sound. Her fourth adult novel, The Naked Light, a gothic story set in an English village following the First World War, was published by The Borough Press on 25 September 2025.