Bethany Willcock is a Christian South African homeschool-grad who loves cats, coffee, historical mysteries, and all things vintage. She lives in a small coastal town in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa’s “garden province”, although she grew up in the Midlands near the beautiful Drakensberg (Dragon Mountain) range.

In 2019 Bethany launched her cover design website, Coverbook Designs, then started her home bakery business called BakerStreat after her love for the classic Sherlock Holmes books. The same year she began participating in online writing camps and met fellow writers who encouraged her to take her writing seriously. Although she had dabbled in fiction and nonfiction for several years, it was only in 2023 that she had two stories published in anthologies hosted by the King’s Daughters’ Writing Camp.

Mystery and historical fiction have always been her favourite genres and she spends her time finding ways to combine the two into new tales with God-honouring themes. So far she’s published the first three What Came After mysteries – an Edwardian-era detective series set in London with connections to Sherlock Holmes; had a 1947-set mystery, And As She Talked, published in the Novelists in November anthology; and won the historical fiction category of a writing contest with her microstory, Beyond These Walls of Sorrow.

Good reading was an important part of her childhood, and Bethany draws inspiration from the wonderful books she grew up on such as The Secret Garden, Heidi, Twenty and Ten, Alice in Wonderland, the Little House books, The Famous Five, Tintin, The Lone Pine series, and of course, Jane Austen, Dickens, and Sherlock Holmes, to name just a few! She is also passionate about classical music and art and spends her free time painting. Bethany loves anything vintage or otherwise historical, and a lot of her mysteries are set during the 40s, both during and after the war.