S.J. Gazan is the internationally bestselling author of The Dinosaur Feather, which was named by NPR's Maureen Corrigan as her favorite mystery in 2013 and on The Wall Street Journal's book critic's, Tom Nolan, top ten mystery list of the same year. In addition, The Dinosaur Feather, was awarded the 2008 Denmark Radio Literature Prize for Best Novel of the Year, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation voted The Dinosaur Feather the Crime Novel of the Decade, and it was awarded the Literature Prize of the Ambassadors of the French-Speaking Countries.S.J. Gazan holds a masters degree in Biology from Copenhagen University, where she specialized in bird origins. While finishing her master studies Sissel-Jo decided to combine her passions as a biologist and novelist and write a scientific thriller. "I took my own situation as a frustrated single mother who was spending too much time studying bird skeletons in the dark depths of Copenhagen Zoological Museum and too little time with my child. I mixed it with the factual elements from my dissertation and heightened the narrative with a murder and a cast of complex and believable characters."Inspired by the herculean humanitarian efforts of a ground-breaking Danish research team working in the West African country Guinea-Bissau, Gazan based her second novel, The Arc of the Swallow (Quercus Spring 2015), on the World Health Organization's (WHO) global immunization program. During its August 2013 Danish publication The Arc of the Swallow received outstanding reviews, and was awarded the prestigious "Readers Price 2014."Gazan lives in Berlin with her Australian-born husband and two children.