Eva Stachniak is the award-winning and internationally bestselling author of The Winter Palace and Empress of the Night, two novels inspired by Catherine the Great The Winter Palace was a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and made The Washington Post’s most notable fiction list. She holds a PhD in literature from McGill University.

The Chosen Maiden, set in the world of Ballets Russes, was published by Doubleday in January of 2017. The Chosen Maiden is like entering Aladdin’s Cave, where a vivid, strange and enchanting world awaits. This is the world Stachniak paints of the Ballets Russes, replete with firebirds and fauns, love affairs and bitter artistic rivalries. Most of all, it is the thrilling world of the Great Nijinsky and his passionate and unforgettable sister Bronia, whose discipline and talent rival her famous brother’s, but whose greatest genius may be her will to survive. Spanning two world wars and the Russian Revolution, Eva Stachniak’s sumptuous and evocative dance of the Chosen Maiden is the dance of 20th century history.

Born and raised in Poland, she moved to Canada in 1981, and lives in Toronto.