Meet the author

Amelia Giudici.

Writer · United Kingdom

Her debut, Anya and the Light Above the Ocean, is a gripping sci-fi mystery about a missing mother and a strange light over the sea — heartfelt, thoughtful, and drawn from the author's own experience of chronic illness.

Amelia Giudici is a British writer and teacher who studied philosophy at Cambridge before turning to children's fiction. Anya and the Light Above the Ocean is her debut novel, a gripping science-fiction mystery for readers of ten and up. When Anya's mother vanishes, she rows out into a storm and touches a shimmering window of light hovering above the waves, then wakes to an eerily silent sea, an unwelcoming couple she is sent to live with, and a secret that upends everything she thought she knew about her mum and herself. Drawing on Giudici's own experience of growing up with chronic illness, the book threads suspense and adventure through real tenderness, exploring loss, identity and what it means to feel at home in who you are. A thoughtful, heartfelt debut that lingers.